


A Man of Honor

by Cassus84



Category: RWBY
Genre: Beacon (RWBY) Didn't Fall, Crimes & Criminals, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Jaune Arc-centric, Lime, Multi, Organized Crime, POV First Person, Partners in Crime, Undercover Mission, Volume 1-3 (RWBY), mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 63,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28367718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassus84/pseuds/Cassus84
Summary: The minute I stepped foot in this city I was living a lie. I had hoped those lies would help me reach my dream of becoming a huntsmen, but it took me down a different path, it took me into the depths of this city's criminal underworld where I learned that among thieves there is honor. An AU where Jaune expelled from Beacon infiltrates the Vale Mafia and becomes a different kind of hero.
Relationships: Jaune Arc/Melanie Malachite/Miltiades Malachite, Jaune Arc/Neopolitan
Comments: 24
Kudos: 88





	1. Prologue

Omertà: Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward. Whoever cannot take care of himself without police protection is both. It is as cowardly to betray an offender to justice, even though his offences be against yourself, as it is not to avenge an injury by violence. It is dastardly and contemptible in a wounded man to betray the name of his assailant, because if he recovers, he must naturally expect to take vengeance himself.

Vale: One Month after the Battle for Beacon.

Saphron Cotta-Arc stared out the window of her hotel room to the glittering lights of Vale highlighted with an orange sunset sky. It was almost difficult to believe that a month ago this was a city under siege. Here and there she could see the signs of the battle as she traversed the city. Buildings damaged by grimm or explosives set by the White Fang terrorists, fires that had left homes piles of ash or blackened concrete facades.

It could have been worse, much worse. It was one thing everyone seemed to agree on. Every bit of information going around about the attack was best vague or at worst suspicious. The Vale Council had been laying the victory on the well coordinated efforts of the police and military but everyone was casting doubt on the official story. The truth of how a potentially cataclysmic attack was avoided was in truth irrelevant to her, she had come here for different reasons. 

She looked down at her scroll and opened it to see a pair of bright blue eyes and a goofy grin staring up at her, Jaune. She had been showing anyone and everyone this picture of him hoping that someone could lead her to him. So far she had no luck.

Moving past the image she pulled up her contact list and selected her home number. It rang three times before it clicked and she heard her wife’s voice greet her. “Hey honey!” she sighed feeling relaxed just hearing her voice over the line.

“I’m guessing you didn’t have any luck today,” Terra said to her.

“No,” she explained to her, “I don’t know where to look anymore, Beacon’s a ruin and the new Headmistress hasn’t exactly been forthcoming, I know Jaune managed to enroll and pass initiation but she says they have no record of a Jaune Arc.”

“I don’t mean to upset you hon but Jaune was the one that told you about passing initiation,” Terra explained to her, “he could have lied.”

“I don’t think he would have lied about that,” Saffron explained, “besides I have no doubt that he at least went through initiation, even if he failed you think they would have some record of him.”

“Did you recheck the casualty list again?” Terra asked her carefully.

“I did,” she answered. The growing list of dead had been the hardest to check. Thankfully her brother’s name had yet to appear but that meant little as every day more and more corpses were recovered and identified. She had checked with the morgues but that too had been fruitless. The idea of her brother dead and unidentified chilled her to the bone.

Saffron rubbed her eyes as if her exhaustion could be cured so easily. “I wanna come home,” she said, “I don’t know what else to do or where else to look, it was bad enough not hearing a word from Jaune before all of this but after all this I don’t know what I’m going to tell mom or dad.”

“Tell them your son misses you,” Terra explained to her, “and tell them your wife misses you and that you’ve done everything.”

“I feel like I’m giving up on him,” she told her, “what would you do if I had disappeared like this?”

“Babe I’d turn over every stone in Vale for you,” Terra said, “take as long as you need, just know that Adrian and I need you too.”

“Thank you sweetie,” Saphron said, unable to hide her smile, “I won’t stay too much longer, a few more days at the most to make sure I’ve looked everywhere.”

A knock sounded at the door pulling her attention away from her phone. “That should be my room service,” Saphron told her, “I’m starving so I’ll eat and call you back sweety, give Adrian a kiss for me.”

“Alright babe,” Terra said, “talk to you soon, and good luck.”

She closed her scroll and with a stood to walk to the door. Looking through the peephole in the door she saw that it wasn’t room service that had knocked on her door. A tall brown haired man stood waiting on the other side dressed in a dark brown suit. She assumed that she had simply knocked on the wrong door and opened up.

“Saphron Arc?” he greeted extending a large hand for her. She looked down at it for a moment noticing that a large flanged mace hung from his belt.

“It’s Cotta-Arc actually,” she corrected taking hold of his calloused hand and giving him a firm shake. “Who are you?”

“Cardin Winchester,” he said, politely introducing himself and giving her a friendly smile, “I work for your brother.”

“Jaune!?” She exclaimed, “where is he? Is he safe?”

“He’s fine, I’m supposed to take you to him,” Cardin told her.

“I don’t understand, if he’s fine then why can’t he come here and see me himself?” She asked him, taking a step back into her room but kept the door open. 

“It’s complicated,” he told her.

“So explain it to me,” she demanded giving another glance at the mace on his hip. “Are you a huntsmen?” She asked him, he looked a little young to be a huntsmen but the weapon he carried certainly looked like something a hunter of grimm would carry.

“No,” he said shaking his head holding his position outside her door. “And it’s Jauney’s job to explain this all too you, he just wanted me to get you for him.”

She narrowed her eyes at the tall man that loomed in her doorway. Her instincts were screaming for her to slam the door, she shouldn’t trust a stranger and just leave with him. Then again she had no doubt this guy could pull her kicking and screaming out of here and she would be helpless. And this was the first person she had met who seemed to have any idea of where her brother was.

“What if I don’t want to go with you?” She asked him, voicing her paranoia.

Cardin tipped his fedora to her, “then have a good night ma’am,” he said turning and walking away down the hall. 

She watched him leaving as her mind churned with her options. She’s been here looking for Jaune and here she was letting her first lead walk away from her. What was she going to do next? Keeping checking morgues? Keep showing his photo to strangers?

“Wait!” She called down the hall for him. He stopped and turned to look at her. “Let me grab my coat,” she told him, closing the door to do just that.

He waited for her and they left together taking the elevator down to the parking garage. “You said you work for my brother.” Saphron said to him, replaying his words in her head.

“That’s right,” Cardin answered, stepping out and leading her through the garage.

“Since when does anybody work for Jaune?” she asked him as her heels clicked against the pavement.

Cardin smirked, “It’s a long story,” he told her.

They stopped when he reached his car. It was a sleek black luxury sedan that Saphron guessed cost more than she could ever hope to afford. He opened the passenger door for her and she climbed in. It still had that new car smell to it.

“I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me this story,” she said as he climbed into the driver seat and started the engine. 

“Nope,” Cardin said, pulling out of his parking spot and rolling out. 

She watched the city pass buy out the window trying. She contemplated jumping out if he drove her into a seedy neighborhood and running away. 

“So what can you tell me?” Saphron asked him.

“I can tell you that Jaune is safe, and that he’s doing very well for himself,” Cardin told her.

Considering Cardin’s suit, car and other bling, Saphron found herself wondering if they were talking about the same Jaune. 

Cardin pulled into a parking garage and they left for the elevator. Saphron watched as he pressed the button for the Penthouse floor and they went up fifty floors.

The elevator dinged and they stepped out. The penthouse was roomy with hardwood floors and many big windows giving a spectacular view of Vale’s skyline.

“We’re here boss!” Cardin called out to the penthouse.

“Saphron!” She heard his voice and turned to see him standing atop a stairwell staring at her. He looked different, he too was dressed in a suit minus a jacket, he wore black slacks and a vest over a blue button up shirt. A cigar smouldered between his fingers and a gold watch adorned his wrist and a brown leather shoulder holster carried a revolver in it.

He wasn’t just different in his attire. Jaune looked worn, several scars ornamented his face, including what looked like a burn cutting into the hairline of his temple. He stood straight instead of slouching like he always used too, but he still wore the same goofy grim he always used to.

“It’s so good to see you sis!” she said stepping down the stairs, his cigar leaving a swirling trail of smoke behind him.

Saphron felt a storm of emotions seeing him, happiness, relief, but seeing him alive and in front of her she settled on rage. 

In a few brisk strides she closed the distance to him and cracked her palm across his face. Jaune reeled back clutching his red cheek. “Jaunathan Arthur Arc!” She roared at him feeling her own palm sting from striking him. “What the fuck is wrong with you?! I don’t get so much as a text from you in months, you don’t take my calls and when I come her to just to see if you’re alive you send this gorilla to bring me all the way here!”

She looked back at Cardin, “Sorry, no offence,” she apologized to him, he didn’t deserve to be called a gorilla. 

Cardin held his hands up innocently to her, “None taken,” he said clearly not interested in getting between the two of them.

“I deserve that,” Jaune chuckled, removing his hand from his cheek showing her red handprint.

Hearing him chuckle made her want to hit him again. “You deserve a lot more than that!” Saphron growled.

“I do,” Jaune admitted to her, giving her a goofy grin. “Can your brother get a hug?” He asked.

She swallowed her anger and stepped forward putting her arms around him, his anger dissipated just feeling him alive in her arms. He returned her embrace, he stank of cigars.

“What’s going on Jaune?” She asked him. “Why didn’t you call? And since when do you wear suits and smoke cigars in penthouses?”

“It’s a long story,” Jaune said scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

“So I’ve been told,” she said to him.

Jaune sighed and took a long drag off his cigar. “We should sit down,” Jaune told her, “how about a drink?”

Saphron nodded to him as he led her back up the stairs and down a hall reaching an office. Jaune set his cigar down on a marble ashtray on a polished wood desk went over to a little bar. “I don’t think we’ve shared a drink since you let me tag along for that party,” Jaune told her, “you remember?”

Saphron took a seat in a leather chair watching her brother pour several fingers of an amber colored liquid into a crystal glass from a matching decanter. “You were worried that mom and dad would know you had a sip of beer,” she said remembering it vividly as her and her friends pressured him into taking that sip. “You thought it tasted like piss.”

Jaune smirked, “what will you have?”

“Same as you,” she told him, wondering just what he was drinking. She looked around the office as he poured her drink, behind in the corner hung a bowler hat and a cane. A rifle was framed in a case on one wall and the floor length window gave him a stunning view of the city and the penthouse balcony and pool. 

“Do you live here?” She asked him as he handed her her glass. The amber colored whiskey smelled smokey and petey and she felt buzzed just smelling it. The first sip burned with a harsh complex flavor.

“I do,” Jaune told her.

“Your rent must be a fortune,” she told him.

“I own it,” Jaune clarified, taking a seat behind his desk and picking up his cigar, “the property taxes are high though.”

“How can you afford this? This apartment, this whiskey the cigars. “What’s going on?”

“When I came to Vale to attend Beacon things went very differently that what I expected,” he explained to her.

“So tell me what happened, it’s bad enough that you didn’t answer my calls but mom and dad are just as worried as I was, we didn’t know anything. We thought you might be dead.” She explained tired of him beating around the bush.

“I couldn’t contact you,” Jaune explained, “it was for your protection, for everyone's protection.”

“What are you protecting us from Jaune!?” She demanded. “Were you in trouble? Are you still in trouble?”

“I’m fine,” Jaune said, “I’m great even, but what happened after I left Beacon was better kept as far away from you and our family as possible.”

“So what was it?” Saphron demanded.

Jaune looked into his glass of whiskey and sighed. “I trust you’ve heard the rumors going around, about what really happened that night the White Fang attacked?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I might have listened to Lisa Lavender’s report,” she explained, “she said the grimm and the White Fang were fought off by a bunch of gangsters.”

“The Vale Council has been trying to keep the facts buried but it’s true,” Jaune explained to her, “that night the Three Families of Vale stopped it, and I was there with them.”

“You fought grimm with a bunch of mobsters?” She asked him dubiously, “is this some kind of sick joke Jaune?”

“It’s not a joke,” Jaune assured her, “I got booted out of Beacon and found myself on a different path.”

“You became a criminal!?” 

“I did,” Jaune confirmed, “but it’s more complicated than that, I didn’t join the mob because of money or sharp suits or anything like that, I was asked too by Ozpin.”

Saphron blinked. The headmaster? “I think you should start at the beginning,” she told him.

Jaune sighed and took a gulp of his whiskey. “You’re right,” he admitted before taking a puff of his cigar and dropping it into his ashtray to burn itself out. “The second I stepped foot into Vale I lived a lie, and in many ways sis I’m still living a lie. You already know how this story started, I arrived in Beacon with fake transcripts, I barely managed to survive initiation and I was made leader of Team JNPR.”

She nodded and took another sip of the bitter whiskey managing to taste a hint of sweetness as it burned her mouth. “That was the last I heard from you,” she said to him trying to wrap her mind about her brother being a criminal, “what happened after that.”

“I was failing my way through the Academy,” he explained to her, “I was losing every fight in Goodwitche’s class, I was failing every test and I was getting bullied by Cardin.”

“That guy who you sent to pick me up?” She asked motioning behind her.

“Yeah,” Jaune chuckled, “turns out he’s actually a pretty decent guy but I’ll get to that later,” he explained before taking a long gulp of his drink and lighting a cigar.

“My partner Pyrrha offered to help me and I let my pride get the better of me. I told her the truth I shot down her offer and told her the truth, that I was a liar that never spent a day in combat school and that my transcripts were forged. She didn’t take it very well and outed me to Ozpin.”

Saphron watched as he took a long puff of his fresh cigar, the cherry glowing bright. He turned his head and looked out over the city. “That’s where my story really begins.”


	2. It began one night with a girl

After I spilled the truth to Pyrrha like an idiot I slept very uneasily. Cardin had apparently overheard my little outburst and had wasted no time in turning the truth into blackmail. The next day after breakfast however I soon discovered that was the least of my worries. 

The minute I stepped into Goodwitche’s class to get my ass publicly kicked she called me out and told me to report to the headmaster’s office. I should have known something was up the way Pyrrha hadn’t even looked at me that morning, I assumed she was just mad at me.

Walking to take the elevator up to the tower I felt like my feet were lead weights and the elevator seemed so slow. When I got up there and entered his office I had a moment where I thought it might not be serious. He sat behind his desk with a steaming cup of coffee next to him, he didn’t look angry or threatening so I thought there had to be some other reason he had suddenly called me up here.

“Good morning Mr. Arc, please take a seat,” he told me motioning to a chair.

I sat myself down and tried to look like I wasn’t sweating bullets. “Good morning sir,” I said, trying to be as casual as I could.

“Last night Miss Nikos came to me and suggested I take a closer look at your transcripts,” he explained. “I think you can guess what I found.”

It felt like I had just been struck by lighting. I wished I had been so I wouldn’t have to listen to the rest and watch as my dreams were slaughtered before my very eyes. I nodded feeling dead inside.

“She explained everything to me,” Ozpin continued on, “please do not be upset with her Mr. Arc she is only concerned with your well being, the life of a huntsmen is dangerous and even learning here can be risky.”

“I understand,” I told him. I honestly wasn’t mad at Pyrrha, she had every right to do what she did. “I’ll be gone before lunch.”

“Not so fast young man, I want to discuss your future,” he said.

“What future?” I asked him, “You’re expelling me aren’t you?”

“Yes I am, but I must admit Mr. Arc despite your false transcripts you have managed to adapt yourself well. You survived initiation and despite your lack of experience you have managed to get through two months of classes with passable grades.” He picked up his coffee cup and took a long sip taking a long hard look at me, sizing me up.

“I’m last in my combat class,” I told him.

“Maybe but worse have passed through these halls Mr. Arc, you have potential young man and I am not in the habit of letting potential go to waste.” He explained to me folding his hands.

“So you’re not going to expel me?” I asked him, feeling a glimmer of hope that I might be able to salvage this somehow and keep my dream alive.

“I’m afraid I must,” Ozpin said, “but I have a proposition for you Mr. Arc, I want to put your potential to use and if things go according to plan I could welcome you back to Beacon. Plenty of other students who go through my academy are self taught like your teammates Miss Valkyrie and Mr. Lie. If you can do this for me Mr. Arc, I’ll be sure to make your qualifications official and I would happily welcome you back into Beacon.”

I felt like a starving man offered a juicy steak listening to this. You know me, I wanted to be a huntsman so bad for so long that I hardly even considered what Ozpin might be asking. “Yes, I’ll do whatever you want,” I said too fast, “What is it?”

Ozpin stared at me, “Are you sure you want to do this Mr. Arc? I know you want to become a huntsman but I warn you that what I am asking you to do will not be easy and it will be extremely dangerous.”

“I already went through initiation,” I told him, “I faced a deathstalker and a crap load of other grimm, I’m willing to face danger for this, being a huntsmen is dangerous. I don’t think I’d be much of one if I turned away right now.”

He smiled at me, “spoken like a true huntsmen.”

“So what do I need to do?” I asked him.

He folded his hands on his desk. “I trust you’ve heard about the dust robberies that have been happening all over Vale?”

I nodded.

“Dust shops have been sacked, entire shipments have disappeared and it’s only getting worse,” he explained to me, “there are of course the rumors that the White Fang is responsible but I believe they are being assisted by the cities organized criminals.”

“So uh, what do you want me to do about that?” I asked him. “I’m not a cop, or a detective.”

“No,” he agreed with me, “but you showed yourself to be very skilled in deception Mr. Arc, if Miss Nikos hadn’t come to me I wouldn’t have assumed that you faked your way through my academy, and I think your skills there can be put to use, I want you to get close with these criminals, infiltrate their organization and feed me information about the dust robberies.”

“You want me to be a spy!?” I asked, finding the idea ridiculous. I had no idea what Ozpin was going to ask me to do but that was probably the furthest thing in my mind. “I have no idea how to be a criminal,” I told him.

“You had no idea how to be a huntsmen either,” Ozpin explained to me, “according to Miss Nikos you did not even know what aura was when you began your initiation, yet you managed to get this far.”

“Where would I even begin?” I asked him, “I can’t just walk up to every thug I see on the street and ask them “hey what do you know about all these dust robberies?” I’ll stick out like a sore thumb.”

“I’m not planning on sending you in blind Mr. Arc,” he explained to me, “I happen to know of some legal businesses owned by some unsavory characters, you could get a job and rub elbows with them, I can help you get set up in an apartment in one of the poorer neighborhoods as well. I hope given time you can earn the trust of these criminals and provide valuable information for me.”

I nodded to him. Getting a job and pretending to be friendly with some crooks? It sounded easy, I was an idiot to think so but I had no idea what I was in for. That moment it sounded reasonable.

“If you don’t think you can go through with this Mr. Arc now is the time to tell me,” he said, giving me an out.

If I could go back in time to that very moment I don’t think I’d change anything. I had no idea how much my life would change, how much I would change. But the way it all turned out I’d do it all over again, I have my regrets sure but I’d go through those all over again too just to end up here.

“I’ll do it,” I told him, “I’m your guy.”

So that’s how it all started. Ozpin explained a little more to me, he told me about the night he had met Ruby, about how she stopped a dust shop from getting robbed by Roman Torchwick and some hired muscle. Apparently that hired muscle belonged to a guy called Junior, he was a boss for Mistral’s crime syndicate and that’s where Ozpin wanted me to start. 

I packed up what I could while classes were still going so I wouldn’t need to face my friends and explain my situation to them. They weren’t supposed to know about my mission. Ozpin had made it very clear that what I was going to do was to stay between the two of us. Plus I didn’t want to tell the rest of them that I had faked my way into Beacon, I was way too ashamed and cowardly to go through that.

I never really had much with me to begin with. Mostly clothes, a few odds and ends and Crocea Mors. The minute I had seen Ozpin again he handed me a list with a number of job openings that he believed could get me closer to the Mistral criminals who operated around town as well as some suggestions for an apartment.

“I think you should leave that with me for safe keeping,” Ozpin told me, taking a look at Crocea Mors on my hip. “A distinctive blade like that would only lead to questions.”

“But shouldn’t I be armed if I’m going to be around a bunch of dangerous criminals?” I asked him. 

“I don’t expect you to fight Mr. Arc, your job will be to collect information on illegal dealings not to sword fight thieves.” He explained to me, “I’ll keep it safe for you.”

I sighed but relented. I handed the family sword over to him and I truly felt like I was losing a part of myself. That humble little sword and shield wasn’t much compared to the rest of the weapons I’d seen in Beacon Academy, but it was mine, it was a symbol of my family’s legacy that I wanted to live up to. But a valuable antique sword wouldn’t be helping me spy on a bunch of dust thieves.

He also took my scroll. He didn’t want to chance anyone seeing my contacts and knowing that I was friends with a bunch of Academy students. He gave me two back, one for general use and the second was a cheap burner scroll. Ozpin told me to hide the burner in my apartment and to only use it to contact him and make my reports on my findings and progress. He expected me to call every week.

He also gave me a wad of cash to handle getting an apartment and other necessities while I started out. So with a backpack full of clothes, two scrolls and a wallet stuffed with lien I caught the first Bullhead into Vale.

I really should have talked to my team. I should have at least swallowed my shame and self pity enough to say goodbye to them. I should have taken the chance to tell Pyrrha there were no hard feelings, I should have told Ren and Nora that I appreciated everything they did for me. I should have thanked Ruby for being such a good friend to me. But I was a coward, so instead I turned my back to all of them to chase my one hope of being a huntsman.

After spending the Bullhead ride trying not to lose my breakfast and redownloading my favorite scroll games I decided that I should probably start by finding a roof to go over my head. I stopped for some fast food and walked into Little Mistral where Ozpin had suggested I look for apartments. Since Ozpin wanted me to get close to the Mistral mob I guess he figured it’d be better if I lived as close as possible to them.

I spent most of the afternoon walking from apartment to apartment. It got me somewhat better acquainted with the neighborhood walking around. I looked through the shops finding more than a few thrift stores I could get stuff for my apartment. I noticed more than a few stands were selling what was almost definitely fake or junk jewelry, some guys were selling TVs out of the back of a van. I had never really gone to this part of Vale before. It was a little run down and dirty, garbage was in the streets and the homeless took shelter in the alleyways. 

After going to maybe half a dozen different places I actually managed to find a place. This super nice old lady from Mistral named Hana put out an add. She owned and lived above a laundromat and had a room she sublet to whoever would take it. The minute I walked in and explained I was looking for a place to live she practically shoved me into the place.

It was a cramped little studio apartment that looked so worn down that I almost considered trying my luck elsewhere and getting a motel for the night. But it wasn’t like I was planning on actually living here for very long, this was just supposed to be temporary and what’s more the previous occupant had left behind a mattress and a couch so I was at least set with basic furniture. 

Hana was thrilled when I handed over the cash for a month along with the deposit and that night she insisted I take some stir fry she cooked up as a housewarming gift. The first thing I did was look for a place to hide the burner scroll Ozpin had given me. Looking around the place I discovered that half the electrical outlets didn’t even work so I managed to remove the plastic cover off of one and hide the scroll in the wall before moving the couch to cover it. 

I ate the food Hana had given me discovering that she was a pretty decent cook and steamed some movies and played some games on my new scroll. I tried sleeping as best I could. The noise of the laundromat downstairs running at all hours, the streets and the lumpy old mattress made comfort an impossibility but I’m sure even a five star hotel wouldn’t have been able to keep me from worrying about my mission. 

I hadn’t really done anything and I already felt out of my depth. It felt just like going through Beacon initiation all over again, except this time there wasn’t Pyrrha to save me from falling to death or to unlock my aura. I was going to go through this all alone, or at least I thought I was. 

The first night of my mission I spent alone thinking about how I was going to convince a bunch of criminals I was one of them. I decided that I was probably going to play things mostly honest. It’d worked in Beacon before I spilled the truth out of Pyrrha, I wasn’t going to pretend that I was some kind of hardened criminal, anyone would be able to see through that, I decided that I’d just pretend that I moved to Vale and was down on my luck and that I wasn’t above breaking a few laws to get ahead. I sort of realized that in many ways that was in fact true, I’d just keep the truth of being an academy student to myself.

The next day I woke up beat tired and decided to take my chances with that list of jobs Ozpin gave me. It wasn’t a big list but it kept me busy all day, most of them involved working at some restaurants that Junior’s guys frequented and others were things like pawn shops and some small stores that obviously were selling stolen goods at a discounted price.

Hardly anything stuck. Ozpin should have realized that a white Vale teen showing up for a job in a Mistral run neighborhood wasn’t exactly going to be anybody’s first pick. They wanted to hire others of their own kind and no crook wants an outsider they never met or never heard of sticking around. As I came to learn I was and outsider here. I was gaijin as some would call me, so my first day looking for a job gave me nothing but rude glances and a lot of being turned down. More than a few suggested I go elsewhere to look for employment. Others I didn’t even bother applying for since I had no skills. I didn’t know the first thing about being a mechanic or repairing TVs.

That was how I spent the last four days. Ozpin had given me more than enough money to cover another two months of rent and meals. I usually ate cheap fast food and my prehistoric fridge became filled with leftovers. I bought a cheap microwave that I was more than certain had been stolen but I wasn’t about to argue with the price. I came to see that many of the things for sale in this neighborhood had been stolen at one point or another, it was how most people in Little Mistral put food on the table.

On the fifth day after finishing some ramen from a stand I decided to head over to another business Ozpin had listed thinking that if it was a bust I’d treat myself to a movie for a moral boost, see the new Spruce Willis flick and feel like a normal guy for an hour or two.

It was a tiny little office with the sign simply reading Rickshaw Taxi Co. It looked well enough and when I went inside I asked the guy working the front desk about the help wanted sign out front and he just gave me a funny look before jerking his thumb to the door behind him.

I opened the door and saw one of the biggest Mistral women I’d ever seen. She wore a black suit with a red tie. Her coat hung on a rack behind her and I could see twin long barreled revolvers resting in a pair of shoulder holsters. This was the first time I had actually shown up for a job and seen someone armed and my first instinct was to make up an excuse and leave before I was considered a threat and had to look down those revolver barrels.

She was talking on the phone but gave me one look before motioning for me to sit. I hadn’t expected to see such a finely furnished office in this little run down office for a cab company. I took my seat and looked around while listening to her half of the conversation over the phone. It wasn’t anything special, she was only ordering a pizza.

Behind her on one wall a red bladed katana and wakizashi hung on a rack and decorating her desk was a rusty old clawed hammer. I thought that was a strange form of decoration before I realized that a hardened criminal might have a ton of unconventional uses for a hammer. 

After giving the pizza place the address and making it painfully clear that she wanted extra mushrooms she set the phone down and looked me up and down like a predator sizing up its prey.

“What do you want?” she asked me, picking a pack of cigarettes up off the table and shaking one out and lighting it.

“I uh, I heard you were looking for cab drivers and I want to apply,” I said trying to repress my nervousness. 

She raised an eyebrow at me and took a drag off her cigarette. “You want a job?” She asked me, “here?”

I nodded, “I need one and I’m a hard worker,” I told her trying to give my best interview speech. 

“So you’re the Vale kid I heard about,” she said, releasing a cloud of smoke over her desk that gently wafted my way.

I felt like I had just been shot, I didn’t even consider that word of me looking for a job in Little Mistral would be getting around. I felt like an idiot, they were a group of organized criminals, of course they would be talking about some Vale kid trying to find work in the wrong neighborhood. “I didn’t know I earned a reputation,” I said way more calmly that I felt, part of me still cannot believe I kept my cool instead of booking it for the door.

“A white kid trying to find work in this neighborhood sticks out like a sore thumb,” she told me with a grin, “why are you looking for work here?”

“I live here,” I told her, “I was hoping to find a job that doesn’t involve a large commute, especially since I don’t have a car.”

“How long have you been here?” She asked me. “Where did you move?”

“Few days,” I told her, “I moved into a room above this laundromat on Cherry street.”

“Hana’s place?” She asked me.

“That’s the one,” I said, “you know Hana?”

She nodded and flicked a bit of ash off her cigarette and into a tray. “I’m acquainted with her, why did you rent a place in Little Mistal?”

I shrugged, “the rent was cheap and I don’t have a job yet,” I told her, “plus she didn’t ask me to sign a lease and was willing to let me move in within the hour,” I chuckled, “plus it came with a bed.”

She chuckled a little at that, “drivers license?” 

I pulled my wallet out and presented it to her, I’d gotten last year on my sixteenth birthday, even though I didn’t really have a car of my own. She gave it a little glance and handed it back to me. “Are you willing to work nights?” 

“I’m desperate for a paycheck so yeah,” I told her.

“When can you start working?” 

“I’m desperate, remember? I can start whenever you want.” 

“Tonight?”

I nodded to her and she reached her hand across the desk. I shook her hand and it was sealed.

“Jaune Arc,” I introduced myself.

“Name’s O-Ushi and I think I’m gonna give you a shot kid,” she said, giving my hand a tight squeeze, “welcome to the Rickshaw Taxi Company,” she said, releasing my hand.

“Thank you,” I said flexing my fingers, O-Ushi had a grip that could rival Nora’s. I was pleased that after several days of getting shut down I finally had gotten my foot in the door for one of the jobs Ozpin wanted. But I realized then that I was also stepping foot into the lions den, it really hit mere there just how much danger I was potentially in.

She must have noticed that my eyes glanced over her revolvers once more and she laight. “Oh don’t worry about these,” she said with a cocky grin, “we occasionally get some rough customers around here, it’s just to scare them.”

I nodded, “I can imagine,” I told her, burying my fears as she got me started. I had expected to fill out some paperwork but instead she just took a copy of my license and that was that. 

She had me download an app so I could begin picking up passengers and showed me out back where the cabs were. They were classic yellow antiques, at first look I had my doubts that they would even drive and the interiors were hardly clean.

“If you need gas take it to Tonen,” she explained to me, “he runs a station just down the road you can’t miss it, he also runs repairs so if there’s any problems he’ll put it on my tab.”

“Anything else I should know?” I asked climbing into the driver's seat and taking a whiff of the interior, years of smoking almost made me gag and I wondered why anyone would even use this cab service. 

“If someone with a diamond next to their names wants a ride take it,” she explained to me.

“Who are they?” I asked her.

“Let’s just say they’re VIPs,” O-Ushi told me, “friends of the business that don’t need to pay, Tonen is one and we got more, they’re top priority so drop whatever you’re doing and pick them up, be nice and they might tip you.”

With that I started the cab up and began my first shift driving cabs for O-Ushi. After getting used to the stale stench of tobacco I set my scroll up and picked up my first customer, it was just some guys wanting to head to the bar for some after work drinks. 

For the most part my first night continued on just like that staring at my scroll screen and driving around people wanting a cheap and easy ride home or to a bar or someplace. Most of my business stayed in Little Mistral but now and then I’d get a call some place downtown or elsewhere. Thankfully the app used GPS or I would have been completely lost driving my way around.

I stopped for some fast food and as it got later and later some coffee so I could stay awake as I kept working past midnight. I started to understand why cab drivers were so cranky after dealing with some less than polite customers and several drunks that I worried would leave me with a mess to clean up.

I felt like the world's dullest spy listening to this one drunk cry about how he embarrassed himself trying to pick up this girl at the bar. From the pick up lines he told me he used I was surprised that he even considered the possibility of going home with anyone. I hated listening to it but I was trying to come off as a good employee and the app allowed them to rate me.

It was three in the morning and I only had a couple of hours left on my shift. I stopped at an old gas station to use the bathroom, the coffee had gone straight through me and I was desperate for a chance to stretch my legs.

When I got back I checked my scroll and saw I had another pickup. A diamond next to the name showed that it was a VIP pickup, the first one of the night wanting a pickup downtown. 

I started the cab up and drove straight there fearing that I would have to deal with some belligerent drunk who couldn’t even enunciate his words and just babble at me. My worries eased however when I saw that the scroll had led me to a nicer part of downtown, some shopping district with windows displaying nice clothes that I’d have to bankrupt myself to buy.

I reached my destination and parked alongside the curb next to a jewelry store. I waited for a little bit scanning the empty streets and spotting no one. I had no idea what I was supposed to do so I just waited, this was one of O-Ushi’s VIPs after all so losing my patience and leaving seemed out of the question.

After maybe waiting ten minutes I saw her. A blonde woman in a fur coat stepped out of the alley carrying a purse walked briskly my way. My first question was; why was a woman like her going to take a ride in my dirty cab of all things? Her heels clicked on the concrete and she opened the passenger door and slipped in sitting next to me. So far all my customers had chosen to ride in the back and I was fine with that.

“Evening ma’am,” I greeted trying not to let the hours of fatigue sully my disposition. “Where to?”

She didn’t say a word, instead she pulled her scroll out and shined the bright screen in my face. Drive, it said.

“Alright but where are you going?” I asked her.

The silence of the street was shattered as an alarm from the jewelry store erupted and made me jump. An electric siren echoed from inside the store and down the street. The woman shoved the brightly lit screen in my face a second time to empathize her point. Drive!

Not about to argue I put the cab into gear and stepped on the gas. The taxi went flying down the street, the light ahead turned red and before I could even consider stopping the woman next to me flashed her scroll right in my face. Run it, she ordered.

I didn’t protest and did just that flying straight through the intersection dodging a few cars as I violated numerous traffic laws. I was hoping that would be the end of it but I was not that lucky. The sound of a siren and flashing lights behind me made my heart skip a beat. What would O-Ushi do if I was arrested? What would Ozpin do? I had no idea what to expect should I get some put into cuffs.

Lose them! The message on the screen flashed to me again and I took a breath. This was what I had signed up for after all. I turned down a street earning a few angry beeps from other drivers. Behind me what little late night traffic cleared out of the path of the cop that chased me. I had no idea what I would do if they caught up, I wasn’t exactly a great driver, I had only been pretty good at following the rules of the road so far.

I tried the best I could weaving in and out of traffic and going down roads at random fearing that I would crash. I kept my foot on the gas and tried to stay at a fast but manageable speed, I wish I could say that I floored it and drove like a bat out of hell, but that was hardly the case. I only drove as fast as I needed to outrun the cop chasing me and to keep my motion sickness in check. Usually cars never got me too nauseous but that night as I winded through the maze of streets my stomach was practically doing backflips, it’s a miracle that I didn’t ralph up my last meal. I was determined to leave the name Vomit Boy behind me.

It was bad enough having one cop chasing me but as I passed a side street a second rocketed out and almost T-boned me. I managed to swerve and avoid it and speed away for the both to chase me. I have no idea how that rusty old cab managed to stay ahead of those two cops but it did and I tried every little trick my frantic brain could think of to keep them gaining on me. 

The woman who had remained eerily quiet next to me showed the screen once more and pointed. Go down the alley it, ordered me. Trying not to slam into the side of the wall I turned down as she told me to.

As I sped down the narrow canyon between two buildings the car before me mysteriously began to change. It was as if another car was being formed over the cab replacing it with some nicer grey sedan. I turned to the woman in the passenger seat and saw that she too was changing, the blonde facade disintegrating before me. It clearly some form of semblance that was allowing her to form an illusion over the cab.

The blonde in the fur coat disappeared before my eyes, it was like watching a mirror shatter and the pieces fall away revealing a beautiful pink and brown haired woman. Emerging from the alley in what now looked like a completely different car she flashed the scroll once more telling me to stop the car.

I pulled up to the side of the road and put it in park just as the two cops emerged from the alley behind me.

I was panicked. I was sure this wouldn’t work and those cops had gotten a look at me. I almost certainly had a guilty look on my face but before the cops even got close the girl next to me grabbed my face and pulled it close to hers. 

For a second I stupidly thought she was going to kiss me. She pulled me close and held me a hair's breadth away from her own face, to anyone else it probably looked like we were making out and I quickly realized that was the point. My heart was hammering in my chest, both from having been in a high speed chase and from the way this girl was holding me close. I stared into her eyes, one was a rich chocolate brown and the other an intriguing shade of pink.

Despite everything that was going on, despite the lights of the cop cars casting shadows in the interior and knowing that if they recognized me this was over I actually got distracted looking into her eyes. There was a curious intensity to her gaze, as if she was somehow looking through my soul with those mismatched eyes, it completely drew my attention.

Her breath was sweet smelling. Who had sweet breath? Somehow I calmed down staring back into her fascinating eyes and taking in the look of her. By her allure I somehow managed to find my cool and almost completely forgot about the cops outside. For a second I was almost tempted to actually try kissing her, but I was sure that I wouldn’t live to see the sun rise if I did. 

A knock came at the window and she released my face. I turned to see a cop shining his light through the window. I rolled the window down and mustered up all the confidence I could. “Evening officer,” I greeted him.

“Evening sir,” he said in that firm tone of authority that all cops use, “did you happen to see a yellow cab speeding down this road?”

“Uh no,” I answered him, “I was… a little busy,” I answered him, flashing him a cocky smile.

“Did you see anything ma’am?” He asked, pointing the light at my passenger.

She only shook her head at the cop. Keeping a hand on my shoulder in a way that I found both comforting and threatening, as if one wrong move and she would open my throat with her nails. 

“She doesn’t really speak,” I told the officer as he gave her a look.

“Why not?” he pressed.

“I didn’t ask,” I said with a chuckle, “we weren’t exactly interested too much in talking if you know what I mean.”

The girl flashed the cop a sinful little smirk as if to confirm my boast. He gave the both of us another look over before giving a nod. “Have a good night you two, drive safe and maybe think about finding a hotel room.”

I laughed, “will do officer.”

And with that he got back into his squad car and left. I waited for him to leave before starting up the car and putting it into drive. I released a breath I hadn’t known I had been holding, the girl next to me crossed her arms beneath her breasts wearing a satisfied smirk as we drove. 

She showed me her scroll and the text told me to drive around a bit more just to be safe. I did so and thankfully I didn’t have a break anymore traffic laws or run from cops.

“Believe it or not this is my first night driving,” I said trying to get a hold of my nerves. She didn’t say anything just gave me an approving look as I drove around randomly.

“So what was that about?” I asked her, trying to make conversation.

She reached down beneath her seat and pulled up the purse she had with her when she entered and opened it for me to see. Piles of jewelry and gemstones glittered from the streetlights outside. I was now officially an accomplice to a jewelry heist. I had just gotten this job hours ago and already I had gotten into a chase with the cops and helped this woman rob the store. That’s when it hit me that O-Ushi’s VIP clients were probably all criminals of some fashion.

“Why did you call a cab for a getaway?” I asked her, “I’m not exactly used to outrunning cops.”

She typed away on her scroll for a second before showing me.

I didn’t mean to trip the alarm, it read. 

“Oh,” I said. She hadn’t exactly been planning on gaining some attention from the cops. If things had gone right she probably would have kept looking like that blonde she had disguised herself as and had me take her away. She typed another message on her scroll.

You did good though. She told me, giving me a wink. I wondered if her eyes had changed looking at her, I had sworn the left was pink and the right was brown but it seemed that they had changed.

“Thanks,” I told her with a nervous chuckle.

We drove around for maybe an hour in silence. I kept looking at her, I certainly looked frayed after everything but she kept this aura of confidence and ease to her that was certainly alluring in its own way. I wanted to ask her a million questions but I figured that too many questions to a thief would look bad so I just kept driving until she told me the address she wanted me to drop her off at.

I drove to the edge of town near the docks as she instructed me. I pulled up behind a warehouse and she got out. 

“Have a good night,” I told her.

She opened the purse and pulled a ring out. She tossed it to me and I stumbled a bit before catching it. She gave me another wink before closing the door and walking off. She opened a parasol and I watched her walk away, watching the enticing way her hips swayed and the way the wind fluttered her hair and coattails. 

Once she disappeared into the warehouse I drove away. The sun was rising over Vale and my first shift driving this rusty old cab was over. It hadn’t gone anything like I had expected. I looked at the ring she had tipped me while I waited at a red light. The price tag said it was worth over twenty grand and considering the size of that rock on the platinum band I believed it.

I checked my scroll for that girl's name. Neo it read. I couldn’t believe that after one night of ferrying drunks around town it ended with me helping a beautiful woman rob a jewelry store and I held in my hand more money than I could hope to make in a year.

Meeting Neo was where it all changed for me. That night I got my first real taste of crime, it wasn’t what I expected but I actually liked it. I had been terrified sure but driving back to O-Ushi’s I couldn’t deny the high all that excitement had left me with.

I didn’t know it then but I was about to get very familiar with that feeling.


	3. The first time I actually won a fight.

I took the cab back to O-Ushi’s place after my first night and went back to the apartment. The first thing I wanted to do was collapse onto the mattress and sleep but I figured that the mission had to come first.

I moved the couch and removed the plastic cover for the outlet for the burner scroll and I dialed the number Ozpin gave me. It rang for a minute before being picked up.

“Mr. Arc?” he greeted.

“Hey,” I said, too tired for any formalities, “I was worried for a moment that I was calling at a bad time, I just got off my first shift.”

“I take it you found a job then?” He asked me.

“I did, I’m driving cabs for a woman named O-Ushi, I’ll be working nights and I just finished mine helping some girl get away from a jewelry store she robbed.” I explained to him. “She was some sort of VIP customer for the cab company, I think these VIPs might be other criminals she’s acquainted with.”

“Good work Mr. Arc,” Ozpin told me, “keep up with the new job and see if any of these special clients of hers let anything slip, in the meantime I want you to make O-Ushi and your fellow coworkers understand that you’re willing to break some laws for some cash, I imagine being an accomplice to grand larceny on your first night has already helped with that.”

“It’s a good first step,” I said stifling a yawn.

“It is Mr. Arc, but there’s still a long way to go, get some rest and call me next week or when there is a development,” he instructed me before hanging up. 

I collapsed onto my mattress and didn’t wake up until the afternoon.

When I came back to work I walked into O-Ushi’s office to tell her what had happened last night after picking up one of her VIPs. I was mainly worried that the cops would have gotten the plates off my cab and be on the lookout but it seemed that O-Ushi wasn’t worried.

“I already heard about what happened,” she explained to me, “that girl texted me once it was done and I reported my cab stolen,” she explained to me sitting behind her desk with a cigarette burning between her fingers.

“Won’t they find it suspicious that your cab was reported stolen after it was seen fleeing a crime scene?” I asked her as she held her pack of cigarettes out offering me one. I took the offered smoke since I figured it’d be polite and I wanted her to like me for the sake of my mission.

“Don’t worry about that,” she said leaning over the desk with her lighter to light my cigarette. “I know some people and it’ll all be cleared up and nobody will ask questions. How are you doing after all that?”

“Me?” I said after taking my first draw of the smoke and coughing. “What about me?” 

“You have a habit of running from the cops?” she asked me, “or helping thieves?”

“This is a first for me I’m afraid,” I told her honestly.

She nodded at that and flicked the ash off her cigarette studying me. “At least tell me you got a tip for your trouble.”

I fished the diamond ring out of my pocket and placed it onto her desk for her. She picked it up and examined it. “Pretty,” she said, tossing it back to me. “I’d wait a bit before you try cashing it, it’s hot right now, or give it to your girlfriend.”

I pocketed the ring a little surprised that she was going to let me keep it and not try claiming it for herself. “So it’s worthless to me now?” I asked her.

“For now, wait a year or two and it won’t be so hot, or get someone to strip it for parts if you’re desperate for cash,” she explained, “that piece of ice should run you a nice stack of lien.”

I nodded and took another drag of my cigarette. “Is that it?” I asked her wondering just what else there was to talk about if she had everything handled.

“Tell me Jaune,” she asked through a cloud of tobacco smoke, “are you at all interested in earning a little something on the side?”

I shrugged. Of course I was very much interested in getting deeper but the last thing I wanted to do was look suspicious by acting too eager. “I mean I’m not opposed but I’m not exactly sure that I want to repeat last night as a regular thing, I know I’m not that lucky.”

O-Ushi chuckled a little. “That’s not what I had in mind, you see Tonen the guy that owns that shop and gas station, he’s always on the lookout for some car parts for his shop and some of my employees keep an eye out for the cars he needs. Interested?”

“You want me to steal cars?” I asked her.

O-Ushi shrugged, “Cars, car parts, but you’re not gonna be doing the stealing you’re just gonna keep an eye out for some cars on his list and if you see any parked while you’re driving give Tonen a text and he’ll send some boys over to collect it. You get a finders fee and I collect my cut.”

I finished the rest of my cigarette as I pretended to mull it over. “I guess I don’t want to be pinching pennies,” I told her, trying to suppress any guilt I felt over the idea of stealing some people’s cars. “Hell, that’s what insurance is for right?” 

O-Ushi laughed and picked up her scroll and texted me a list of cars for me to be on the lookout for. “That’s right,” she said with a wide grin, “now get to work.”

I did just that. Getting back in my cab I started another night of ferrying around all sorts of late night types. I checked the list and did exactly as instructed looking out for any of the cars on the list. 

I didn’t really know much about cars so I wasn’t really anyone who could tell the difference between a Schneedillac or an Atlrrari or most of the other models listed. So I spent a good deal of my freetime on my scroll searching for the vehicles and getting an eye for them.

In the meantime I was committed to the grind of my job. Dealing with plenty of rough drunk customers, some were just normal people that needed to get somewhere. Occasionally I picked up a couple that was going back to their place to hook up. That was always awkward, having a couple loudly making out in the back seat. 

But here and there I got to pick up the VIPs. This was exactly what I wanted, they were the people I was hoping to talk to and maybe get some intel to pass onto Ozpin. Aside from their VIP status when they used the APP for a ride you could always see that these guys were gangsters.

They almost always wore suits, usually with red shirts or ties, occasionally they had some bling on as well. They also always checked the back seat before getting into my cab, paranoia as I came to learn was a necessary part of being a career criminal. These guys were actually my best customers, they never discussed business so my hopes of passing some hearsay to Ozpin didn’t last. But they always had a story to tell, some of them were even the guys I talked too about finding a job and seeing me working for O-Ushi changed their attitude pretty quickly.

They told me a little about the neighborhood. I learned then that Little Mistral was founded long ago when the city of Mountain Glenn fell to the grimm. Apparently a ton of Mistrali workers immigrated back then to help build the city and found themselves refugees in Vale once it fell. The Council stuck them into this ghetto along with a bunch of Faunus and other native Vale refugees. 

Ferrying around these wiseguys started to become my new history class. Believe it or not most of these gangsters who never finished school but they knew their local history enough to pass Oobleck’s class. A lot of them liked to talk about “The good old days” when Hei Xiong senior and Luca Torchwick formed their families from these displaced masses. 

But aside from the history lessons these gangsters were always happy to tell me the best places to get a good meal or point me to the best shops and tell me how to not get ripped off. Since I worked for O-Ushi they were nice to me and they were certainly a lot more pleasant to drive around than most of my usual customers. 

But what really made them so great was the way they tipped. For a bunch of wiseguys that didn’t need to pay for a ride in my cab they tipped like they wanted to get rid of their money. No one else gave me a diamond ring but they were pretty generous with the rolls of twenties they carried. By the end of my first week I wasn’t able to fit all those bills into my wallet, I took to hiding the cash behind my fridge in an envelope.

As for helping O-Ushi’s partner Tonen steal cars I finally found my first chance by the end of my first week. I saw a Schneedillac sitting parked behind a bar that I picked some guy up at, it was last call so I figured that whoever owned it probably did the sensible thing and caught a ride home. 

It was easy, just one phone call and I was done. The next day when I came in O-Ushi had a couple hundred lien for me for finding it. It was nothing compared to what Tonen probably made after chopping it and reselling it but it was more than I would have made in a single night all by myself. 

I used to think that most thieves were just opportunists working alone but I was starting to see just how organized these people were. They were running a network of interconnected hustles and mostly legal businesses. I started spotting more and more cars as I drove around and all I had to do was make a phone call and I would make double what I would have gotten in cab fare alone. 

Whoever said that crime doesn’t pay was an idiot who had no idea what they were talking about and should have kept their mouth shut. In a couple weeks I was able to furnish my crappy little apartment so it actually felt somewhat like a home. Most of my fellow cab drivers were earning plenty with their side hustles and like those gangsters that handsomely tipped us they practically where throwing money away. 

They’d spend their lien on nice suits and bling like the wiseguys we drove around so they could look the part. A lot of them were actually like me trying to move up, they wanted to get real jobs in the family directly working for Junior or O-Ushi and they figured they should dress the part. They also spent their money going to restaurants or nightclubs or buying their girlfriends expensive gifts. It was madness, these people were bringing home more dough than most people could have working an honest job and they were practically throwing it away.

But these guys had no intention of ever making an honest buck as I learned over time. They grew up in this neighborhood barely having enough money for lunch and watched these guys driving around in nice cars with nice suits. A lot of kids want to grow up to be doctors or huntsmen, kids in this neighborhood wanted to be gangsters, and that dream was always within reach for them.

For a while this was my life. Driving a bunch of people around including some gangsters and occasionally spotting a nice car that Tonen wanted and making a call for one of his boys to pick up. I had also become quite the night owl staying up all night and through the early hours of the morning and my social life was occasionally grabbing breakfast with my coworkers after a long shift before going back and crashing in my little apartment. 

My reports to Ozpin didn’t really have anything of particular interest to him. He didn’t want to hear anything about cars being stolen. He wanted me to tell him about the dust robberies that were happening across the city but I honestly didn’t know anything about that. I had been careful not to ask too many questions to avoid suspicion and so far it was working, but I wasn’t even close to knowing a damn thing that Ozpin cared about. My calls to him were short and boring.

While I didn’t really have much of anything to report to Ozpin I certainly had a bunch of questions I wanted to ask him. The hardest part of all of this was trying to forget about my friends back in Beacon. I was starting to really regret not saying goodbye to my team or Ruby. I didn’t ask Ozpin about how everyone was doing no matter how much I wanted to. I didn’t want him to think that I was having second thoughts and it wasn’t like any of my friends regularly spoke to the headmaster or anything. So I kept on with my job, it was the only thing I could think of doing. And it turned out I was on the right path already.

One morning after I had dropped off my final customer I was making my way back to O-Ushi’s office to drop the cab off. A light turned red at an intersection and I stopped to wait grabbing my cup of lukewarm coffee and guzzling the contents. I didn’t notice the three guys approaching my cab.

A crowbar smashed my front windshield making it spiderweb as another guy dressed in a cheap leather jacket plunged a knife into my rear driver side tire deflating it. The third guy opened my door to pull me out.

Now I remember that Ozpin never intended for me to get into fights, but I was working with a bunch of criminals and driving around a rough neighborhood so I started keeping the tire iron for my cab in the front seat just in case things got ugly.

As this big guy pulled me from my cab I grabbed for the tire iron and swung it at him. He almost certainly wasn’t expecting me to put up much of a fight because my first swing struck him across the jaw. 

He let me go and fell to the sidewalk drooling blood. What little time I had spent in Beacon learning to fight had always been against students who had their auras unlocked and a wealth of practice and experience. Seeing a guy bleeding on the sidewalk after just a single desperate swing was the last thing I expected, he didn’t have any aura to shield him like everyone else I had fought before, and he wasn’t even close to being as tough as a grimm.

I was actually so stunned looking at this big guy spitting up his teeth that I didn’t pay attention to the punk with the knife. “Fuck you!” he said taking the cheap little blade and stabbing it right at me only for my aura to flare up and shield me. 

Remembering that I was still in a fight I turned and swung the tire iron at him as he tried for another stab. I smashed his wrist and he dropped the knife with a string of curses. I probably broke his arm hitting him like that, this was a lot easier than Goodwitch’s class, even if I was using an awkwardly balanced tire iron instead of a sword. 

The third punk who had been smashing my windshield and headlights finally decides to take a swing at me with his crowbar. It struck me right in my face and bounced right off my aura, it didn’t so much as bruise me. I brought my tire iron down on his shoulder and he screamed in pain as his arm dropped limp to his side, I heard his collarbone snap.

That was all it took to send those punks running, they picked themselves up and faster than they had appeared scrambled down the alley. I chased after them a little waving the tire iron over my head screaming at them. “Yeah you better fucking run!” I called after them to make a point before stopping to watch them disappear. I caught sight of their jackets that all had some gold dragon embroidered on the back. I figured they were some street gang but I was confused why a Mistrali gang in this neighborhood would try attacking one of O-Ushi’s cabs.

That was the first time I had ever won a fight. I honestly felt like a bully kicking their asses, at Beacon winning a fight meant I just knocked their aura down and Goodwitch told us to stop. No one bled or lost teeth or needed a hospital. This was completely different to what I had spent so much time preparing for. The fights in Beacon where clean and bloodless. This wasn’t like Beacon at all.

I turned back to my cab to inspect the damage. One slashed tire, one broken windshield, two smashed headlight and a huge collection of dents on the hood. To me it looked like the only thing I prevented was one roughed up driver, but I supposed for me that was good enough.

I took the cab over to Tonen’s shop like O-Ushi had told me to if there was any trouble. I pulled up and got a whole mess of looks. Tonen stepped away from one car he was working on to wipe his hand on a rag.

“I need some repairs,” I told him feeling like that was the biggest understatement I could have made.

“The fuck happened here?” He asked me, lighting a cigarette.

“Some punks jumped me at a red light,” I explained to him, “I managed to fight them off but not before they trashed my ride,” I explained to him everything, about how they ambushed me while I was taking a drink of coffee which I only then realized was all over my favorite Pumpkin Pete hoodie. I told him about how I managed to fight them with the tire iron and I told him about spotting the gold dragons on their jackets.

He gave me a cigarette to smoke while he called O-Ushi and we took one of his cars to her office. She was already sitting behind her desk and enjoying a morning smoke when we arrived.

“This kid says he was jumped by three dragons who trashed your cab,” he explained as I took a seat in front of her desk.

O-Ushi let out a curse and looked me over, “Three?” She asked me looking me up and down and seeing that I didn’t even have a scratch on me.

I nodded to her, “I chased them off with a tire iron,” I explained to her, “who are these dragons?” I asked her, “Why’d they jump me?”

“They’re the 24k Dragons,” she explained to me as I puffed on the cigarette Tonen had given me. “They used to work in this neighborhood with my blessing, until they started pushing drugs, now they’re making trouble for me. But how’d you fight them off?”

“With a tire iron,” I explained to her.

“Is that all?” She asked me.

“Well uh… they weren’t exactly expecting me to have aura,” I admitted. I didn’t want to admit that but I knew that if I looked like it was too easy things were going to look suspicious to her.

“You’re packing aura?” She asked me, “Where’d a kid like you get that?”

I didn’t have an explanation lined up for her, it would have been better if she had no idea I had my aura unlocked and I wished I had some elaborate story lined up for her. But I didn’t and I figured that the best lies are lined with truth. 

“I was a Beacon student before I came here,” I told her hoping that it wouldn’t immediately be run out by her for that little bit of truth. “I was expelled.”

“Why?” she asked me.

“Because my transcripts were fake,” I explained to her, “I didn’t have the training requirements so once they found out they gave me the boot, I sold my weapon for what money I could before looking for work.”

“So you’re a washed up academy kid?” She chuckled at that. 

“Yeah,” I admitted, scratching the back of my head and giving a glance to the rusty old hammer that was on her desk. “I didn’t mean to lie to you or anything, you just didn’t ask.”

“Don’t worry about it kid,” she said, opening the drawer in her desk and reaching in. “It’s not like you’re the first Beacon washout to end up in the dumps,” she said pulling a small leather holster from the drawer. From the holster she drew a small snub-nosed revolver and popped the cylinder checking that it was loaded before tucking it back in the holster and sliding it across the desk towards me.

“I’m expecting the 24k Dragons to be giving me some more grief in the future so having some of my drivers packing aura is just the kind of edge I’m going to need, just make sure the next time you’re jumped you wave this around instead of a tire iron, they’ll be running for the hills.” She explained to me as I looked at the little handgun on the table.

I stood up and snubbed out my cigarette in her ashtray before I picked it up. I drew it from the holster and looked at the polished blue steel, it was a simple .38 nothing compared to the massive sniper rifle scythe or shotgun gauntlets I had become accustomed to seeing in Beacon.

“I know it’s not much,” O-Ushi said, “but it’ll get the point across to those thugs.” 

I was honestly a little scared to accept that little pistol. I was more than a little scared actually, I was supposed to be keeping my head down around these guys and reporting information, I wasn’t supposed to be killing anyone for them. I already felt bad for busting those guys up, I imagined leaving them dead in the street and I felt nauseous. But then again earning trust wasn’t easy and I knew that if I said no then my chances of getting deeper were going to evaporate.

“Thanks,” I said tucking the little pistol and holster away inside my waistband like it was designed to. “I’ll make sure those punks stay away from your cabs.”

O-Ushi nodded to me, “Good, now go and clean up kid, Tonen and I need to discuss business,” she said dismissing me with a wave of her hand.

I left and walked back to my crummy apartment. I was constantly aware of the weight of the gun tucked into my jeans during the walk. I didn’t exactly have a permit to carry a concealed weapon but I supposed that meant little to O-Ushi. 

When I got back to my place I locked the door and reheated some fried noodles Hana had given to me. For all the issues my apartment had her free home cooked meals were certainly a good bonus. I set the gun down on my little coffee table and pulled out the burner scroll Ozpin had given me.

“Anything to report Mr. Arc?” He asked the minute he picked up.

“I got jumped by some gang members this morning,” I explained to him, “they busted up O-Ushi’s cab and tried to rough me up. But I managed to fight them off with little difficulty.”

“I see,” he said, probably wondering why I would think this was relevant to him.

“The gang is called the 24k Dragons, it seems they used to on good terms with O-Ushi until they started dealing in drugs,” I continued on for him, “I had to explain to O-Ushi why I had aura so I said that I was just some wash up out of Beacon, she bought it. She says she’s expecting more trouble in the future and she gave me a gun just in case this ever happens again, she says she thinks she’s gonna need more people like me with aura.”

“I understand,” Ozpin said, “this is good Mr. Arc, if she trusts you enough to help her with keeping her interests safe it means you have a perfect opportunity to get closer to all of this. Continue to do what she asks of you, be proactive in helping her take care of these Dragons and she might trust you enough to get closer to her other business, maybe even to Junior himself.”

“Sir… she gave me a gun, those guys I fought were big but they didn’t have aura, it was easy. What if she expects me to kill for her?” I asked him, hoping that Headmaster Ozpin of all people would have some kind of clever answer to my apprehension that would spare me from getting any blood on my hands.

“Do whatever you must Mr. Arc,” he told me, “trust is not easy to earn.”

The call ended and all I could do was stare at the little .38, small as it was, it felt quite heavy in my hands.


	4. Chapter 3: A Night at Junior’s Club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality." ~ Al Capone.

Luckily I wasn't forced to use that gun anytime soon. A couple of my coworkers however weren't quite so lucky when they had their run-ins with the 24k Dragons. A least four other cabs got thrashed along with their drivers. I was asked a couple of times to work double shifts since some of the guys were in the hospital, O-Ushi certainly made sure that I got paid well for the trouble.

I was honestly lucky that those thugs just tried smashing up my cab. One guy had one of the dragons drive up with a motorcycle and threw a molotov cocktail through the open window. Lucky for him the bottle didn't break but the burning rag certainly left him with a few scars. After that O-Ushi made it very clear that we were supposed to keep the windows closed at all times because of that.

And it wasn't just O-Ushi getting flak from these guys either. Tonen too had some trouble with some guys trying to bust up his shop and tag the place with graffiti. I was at my apartment enjoying some miso soup Hana had given me when he called.

"Hey Jaune!" Tonen said to me. I didn't even know that he had my number. "I'm working late here at the shop and I think I saw some 24k boys driving by, you got that gun O-Ushi gave you?"

"Uh yeah," I told him, looking at it laying on the table in front of me.

"You been drinking?"

"No," I told him.

"Then get your ass over here! I need some extra muscle and they should know not to fuck with you!" He told me, "I'll make it worth your time, all you gotta do is stand around and look tough."

Tough? I thought. Since when did I look tough? I was the guy who wore a Pumpkin Pete sweatshirt. But if Tonen wanted me to be his muscle for the night then that's what I needed to do, besides it wasn't like I had any plans for the night. I hardly had a social life so I was probably going to watch TV and think about what was happening at Beacon.

"I'll be right there," I told him, sticking my food in the fridge and grabbing a jacket that didn't have a cartoon bunny on it.

"Hold on I'm sending a car." Tonen told me.

Sure enough after five minutes a car pulled up by the laundromat being driven by this guy Toshi. "You Jaune?" He asked me.

I nodded to him.

"Get in."

I climbed into the passenger side and he drove me to the shop. Tonen was waiting outside when we arrived. "Thank you for coming," he said, shaking my hand and passing both me and Toshi a pack of cigarettes.

"Just smoke and walk around the place with me for a couple of hours," Tonen explained to me, "my boys are putting the finishing touches on some nice cars, we'll roll them out when we're done and then drinks are on me."

We did just that, we walked around keeping an eye on everything occasionally stepping in to get some coffee. Toshi and Tonen both had guns under their jackets and one of his guys inside had a shotgun resting on a table.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" I said to Tonen as I lit what was probably my seventh cigarette of the night.

"Sure," he said as we scanned the sidewalk together, spotting an old van driving by that we kept an eye on until it rounded the corner.

"Why hasn't O-Ushi done anything about these punks causing her trouble?" I asked Tonen, releasing a breath of smoke. "I mean she has people, she has guns and if these guys used to work around here with her then why doesn't she just go and take care of them?"

"Oh she's going to take care of them," Tonen explained, "but it's a little more complicated than that, so far the 24k Dragons are just trying to make O-Ushi cave and let them sell dope around the neighborhood, they're busting her stuff and roughing up her guys. And we're returning the favor. But getting guns and shooting them up would be crossing a line, the 24k Dragons are protected."

"By who?" I asked. I had thought that all of the Mistrali gangs were in Junior's pocket at this point so hearing that one was not only giving one of Junior's underbosses trouble but was protected came as a surprise.

"These fucking Atleasians," Tonen explained to me, "a number of years ago they cornered the city's drug market and have been pulling in the smaller street gangs to push it for them."

"So why not let the 24k Dragons deal some dope in the neighborhood and collect your cut?" I asked him. "It sounds a lot easier than fighting them like this."

"We don't do that kind of business!" Tonen said to me firmly. "Junior has made it clear that he doesn't want anyone dealing with that shit, the Atleasians have no honor so we don't mind if they want to sell their souls but they better keep it out of our neighborhoods."

"I had no idea you had such a strong stance against drugs," I said to him, I found the idea that these crooks were concerned about the state of their souls a little hard to believe at the time.

"Hey don't be like that," Tonen chided me, "it's not like we got a problem making a buck over a bag of grass or anything. But if you saw the shit these dealers have to put up with you'd understand. The law comes down hard on drug dealers and they're a nasty web of deadbeats who'll sell their mothers just to keep out of jail. The law busts one dumbass kid who wants to party and the next thing he's taking the stand in court and pointing to whoever sold him the pills and putting everyone at risk. There's a lot of money pushing that shit and everyone is greedy and wants a slice of the pie, it's a bad business."

I nodded as I listened to him. "So if O-Ushi goes after the 24k Dragons the Atleasians will step in on their behalf?" I asked feeling like I was able to understand how things were going.

"Exactly," he said to me, "we're hitting the Dragons back right now but we aren't gonna strike below the belt until they do, and trust me the Atleasians may play dirty but they won't risk war over just a few scuffles and a gang that's punching above their weight class."

I finished the pack of smokes as the hour passed. No one tried making a move on Tonen's shop the whole night. We were pretty sure that some guys passed us by to maybe try something but watching us patrolling the area was deterrent enough. Tonen paid us with a roll of twenties and a couple cartons of cigarettes before we drove off for the bar, no one there even cared that I wasn't old enough to legally drink, not even the bartender.

I ordered a beer like everyone else and did my best to stomach it. Tonen and Toshi complimented me on the cars I had managed to find for me and told me some of their funnier stories. Tonen for example told me he got the nickname Eight Ton after he stole a eight ton truck years ago, apparently the guy that called him saying there was a white truck to steal and when Tonen arrived the truck the was supposed to steal was gone so he mistakenly took the eight ton. His boss called him a fucking idiot until they opened up the truck and saw that it was full of DVD players, apparently they managed to empty the truck and hawk them all off in an afternoon.

"What do they call O-Ushi?" I asked after my third beer, I discovered that they tasted a lot better after you drank a couple.

"You don't know?" Toshi asked me as he stole a couple of fries out of my basket.

"They call her The Hammer," Tonen explained trying to line up a shot on the pool table.

"The Hammer?" I asked, remembering the old rust one that rested on her desk.

"Yeah," he said, knocking one of the balls into the corner pocket. "About ten, fifteen years ago she was growing up here and barely had a cent to her name, she took to mugging people with a hammer and had a real nasty reputation. Then as I heard the story one day one of Junior's guys was going around making collections when like an idiot he walks into her alley. She tries to mug the poor sap and when he refused she busted him up with a hammer, I heard she shattered his knee cap and proceeded to give him one hell of a dental bill before finding more money than she'd ever seen in his coat."

"Fuck," I said trying to imagine O-Ushi as a kid cornering someone in an alley with that hammer, it was a pretty terrifying thing to imagine. "What happened after that?"

"Junior found out that one of his boys had gotten beat up by a teenage girl and stole his week's cut," Tonen laughed, lining up another shot, "so he tracked her down and had some of his boys drive her to his club and offered her a job."

"Just like that?" I asked them.

"Junior recognizes talent," Tonen said, knocking a striped ball into a pocket.

"For beating people?" I asked with a chuckle.

"Damn straight!" Toshi said, "it's a tough business and she was a tough gal, I heard he even let her keep the money."

They spent the whole night telling me all kinds of stories like that. Everyone in this business has a story and I learned more than a few that night sharing some drinks with Tonen and Toshi. It was actually a pretty fun night, I learned that I was actually pretty decent at shooting pool and Toshi could even sing karaoke like a pro. I actually forgot that I was Ozpin's spy that night. It was probably all the beer and the shots Tonen ordered but it was the best time I had since I left Beacon. Toshi even tried being my wing-man to a couple of girls who were there. I didn't go home with anyone but I actually scored a phone number for the first time in my life.

The next morning however I woke to regret all the alcohol and cigarettes. I learned the truth about hangovers that morning. I honestly didn't even remember going back to my apartment that night and I called Tonen to learn that we called one of O-Ushi's cabs back. I spent the entire day in my apartment cursing the noisy laundromat below me and avoiding bright lights. Thankfully it was my second day off and nobody called me to do anything.

The next night I was back in the cab and my first customers were several VIPs all in a row. What's more, all of them had me drop them off at Junior's Club and they were tipping me even bigger than usual. So it was clear as day that something was going on.

I stopped off downtown and watched as these two really hot girls walked out. They were both green eyed and black haired. One was dressed in an elaborate white dress with a sharp pair of stiletto heels while her counterpart wore a similar red and black dress with evidently bladed gauntlets. Both had fur stoles both white and black respectively to their outfits. Aside from the red one having shorter hair they looked almost identical and I realized they were twin sisters by the time they opened the cab doors.

"Junior's Club," they said in unison as they situated themselves in the back seat.

"That's a pretty popular place tonight, you're the fourth ride in a row I've taken there" I commented trying to make some small talk and figure out why tonight of all nights that was the place for Mistrali gangsters to hangout.

"It's the grand reopening," the red one said.

"Some blonde bitch tore the place up over a month ago and now it's finally fixed and better than ever," the white one explained to me.

I nodded along. This was the first I was hearing about some blond tearing up Junior's club or anything like that.

"Sounds like fun," I said, actually meaning it. So far the club looked like it was going to be packed.

"Oh it will be," the girl in white told me, "plenty of drinks and dancing and fun for all."

I chuckled a bit at that, "I'm surprised the two of you are taking a cab instead of having your dates chauffeur you."

The one in white giggled, "we're planning on playing the field tonight, see if we meet anyone interesting."

"Well happy hunting," I said to the two of them as we approached the club.

The street was crowded with cars dropping people off for the club and the sidewalk was packed with average people wanting to get into the club at the behest of the bouncer. A ton of O-Ushi's cabs were pulling up to drop off whomever while other guys drove up in their fancy sports cars with their loud engines and let their valets park. It was a hell of a sight, it was like a parade of gangsters outside the club.

"Let us off down the block over here," the red one said pointing down the street over my shoulder, "it's too crowded here."

"Yes ma'am," I said obediently pulling away from the overcrowded street and going down the road to a safe spot to drop the two of them off.

"Motherfuckers!" The one in white cursed behind me suddenly as I passed by an alley.

I turned back to see her turn around in her seat. She clearly didn't bother buckling up. "Is there a problem?" I asked her.

"Turn around," she said, "drive down that alley."

I didn't bother to argue or question her demand and proceeded to do an illegal U turn before heading down the alley. It was then that I saw exactly what had infuriated the girl so badly. A couple cars were parked down the alley where a small crowd of people clearly dressed to go clubbing were talking to a couple of 24k Dragons.

"Those fucking cocksuckers!" the white one said leaning forward to glare at them as they all looked down into my headlight casting long shadows down the alley. "Selling that shit less than a fucking block from the club!"

"We need to teach them a lesson Melanie," the red one said.

"Damn right we do Milta," the white one said, opening the door and stepping out to approach them, her stiletto heels clicking loudly on the concrete.

"Wait in the car," Milta instructed me before closing the door to follow her sister.

I did exactly as I was told and watched through the windshield. The several clubbers watched as the twin sisters strutted their way towards them glaring at the four dragons who were already pulling out lead pipes and chains for their weapons.

"Leave!" Melanie said to the clubbers with a very threatening tone.

They obeyed scrambling to leave the alley before the trouble started. A blonde girl passed by Mel clutching a plastic zip-lock bag with some pills inside. Mel snatched the little baggie from the tiny blonde's hand and tore it open to spill out all over the alley.

"Hey!" the blonde protested, "I paid for those."

Melanie grabbed the girl by her blouse and yanked her back, tearing it open in the process. "Get the fuck out of here you druggie bitch!" She growled not bothering to even look back at her. "And don't you fucking dare let me catch you at Junior's club!"

I was on the edge of my seat watching this all unfold before me. And not in a bad way, seeing these two hot as hell girls strut down the alley towards those punks made me regret not having a bag of popcorn. Just seeing that these gals had huntsmen weapons and their cool demeanor told me they probably had the situation well under control.

The dragons were the first ones to make a move. The first guy charged in like an idiot and swung his chain at them. Milta caught the chain in her claws and used his momentum to throw him hard to the ground.

"Melanie, these guys have balls. Coming here, dealing drugs and raising their hands to us," Milta said as the guy on the ground groaned in pain.

"They certainly do Milta," Melanie responded, "we should show them what happens to punks ballsy enough to fuck with Junior!" Her shapely leg rose up and she slammed her stiletto heel right down on the guy's groin.

The memory of that punk's shriek of agony echoing down the alley still sends shivers down my spine. Brave or stupid the other three charged the twins in a desperate attempt to gang up on the two of them. It went as well as could be imagined. I watched the two of them make short work of them, some rusty pipes and a chain were nothing to the flurry of claws and bladed heels they faced.

They didn't kill any of them. Melanie had left two with a couple broken ribs and a few cuts, while Milta had cut the other guy up enough to need a hell of a lot of stitches. But the fight didn't quite end there sadly. From the other end of the alley two lights shone back and the high pitched hum of a motorcycle announced that we had company.

Two guys sporting their 24k Dragon jackets drove right past, two more sat bitch clinging to their buddies waist. One took a swing at Melanie with a baseball bat with some nails while the other tried blasting Milta with a sawed off pump shotgun, blasting a trashcan full of buckshot.

They reached the end of the alley and stopped their bikes to turn and let their passengers off. Melanie didn't let up and charged only for one of the bikers to spur their ride forward to meet her raising a machete while his buddy tried doing the same to Milta.

I may have been told to wait in the car but I wasn't feeling so comfortable watching this fight escalate. Don't get me wrong Mel and Mil certainly seemed capable of handling four more guys but I wanted to make an impression and show initiative like Ozpin had told me. And I didn't want to explain to O-Ushi how her cab got hit by stray buckshot and I just watched from the inside.

I grabbed my tire iron and threw the door open. Sure I had a gun but the last thing I wanted to do to kill these any of these guys. The first guy who had the bat turned and saw me so I charged him first. I parried his swing and riposted with a strike to his left arm, he screamed in pain as it dropped but he kept hold of the bat and swung it right at my face.

It was a good solid swing. My aura flared up and shielded me from the blow. The nails bent and the wood bat splintered against the aura leaving me unscathed. I hit the guy again in the leg sending him down in agony.

I turned and spotted the thug with a shotgun who clearly noticed me knocking the shit out of his friend. He raised his sawed off to me ejecting the shell. I threw the tire iron at him in an act of desperation. It tumbled through the air and hit him in the shoulder. He flinched and the gun went off harmlessly blasting the ground. I charged him and grabbed the barrel of the gun with my left hand wrenching it away as I slammed my fist into his face.

His nose made a wet crunch as my fist impacted against it. I pulled my hand back and punched him again and again as hard as I could. He let go of the gun and I swung it at his face knocking teeth out and sending him to the ground.

I turned to see the guys on the bikes racing down the alley for the twins. Melanie jumped and kicked the first guy off his ride letting it crash into a dumpster as he cried on the ground. Milta had parried one of the machete swings and slashed the tire making the guy crash right into the wall.

"Fucking bastards!" Melanie cursed grabbing the first guy and smashed his helmeted head against the car. "You draw guns on us!? You fucking ruined my dress!" She cursed pulling the motorcycle helmet off before kicking him in the face.

"Calm down Melanie!" Milta said, "don't kill him!"

"We fucking should!" she hissed, "They pulled guns on us Milta!"

"You heard Junior, we're not supposed to escalate things," Milta explained to her sister.

Melanie snarled and dropped the poor guy, "fine," she said, turning her eye towards me.

"I thought I told you to wait in the car," Milta said, narrowing her eyes and walking towards me.

I shrugged, "I wasn't about to let these guys make a mess of O-Ushi's cab, besides there were enough of them to go around."

Melanie burst out laughing, "get a load of this tough guy Milta," she said looking at the two thugs I left on the ground in a world of hurt. "Listen up cocksuckers! You better get the fuck out of here right now or more of Junior's boys show up, they might not be so merciful."

Milta reached into the open trunk of their car pulling out a big bag of pills and tore the seal off before dumping the contents into a rain puddle. "And keep that shit away from our turf!" She said to them before falling into step alongside her sister.

I climbed back into the cab still carrying the shotgun I had taken from the one thug that I just stowed in the back seat with no idea what to do next. The twins opened the door and climbed in after me. This time Melanie climbed into the passenger seat next to me. "Son of a bitch, that asshole got blood on my dress," she said looking down at her white skirt as I backed out of the alleyway.

"I could drive you back to your apartment to change," I suggested to her.

"Yeah thanks," Melanie said to me and I turned down the road to retrace my drive back to their apartment building.

"Like this is bad Mel," Milta said, sitting behind her sister, "we're less than a block away from the Club."

"It's that fucking blonde bimbo's fault," she cursed knocking her fist against the dashboard, "ever since that bitch trashed the club everyone thinks they can disrespect Junior, but we'll have to show them better."

I just listened to them as I drove but Melanie looked over at me. "What's your name?"

"Jaune Arc," I said, "short sweet rolls off the tongue." I looked at her, "You're Melanie right?" I asked her.

Melanie giggled at that and nodded, "Melanie Malachite, and this is my sister Milta. Thanks for the assist Jaune, Like I didn't realize O-Ushi's drivers packed aura."

"Yeah," Milta said, "like if I knew I'd have invited you out to bust their heads with us."

"As far as I know I'm the only one of her drivers who does," I explained feeling more than a little flattered.

"Well Jaune you can be sure that Junior and O-Ushi are going to be hearing all about this from us, we'll put in a good word for you." Milta said, flashing me a smile.

"You should come to the club with us," Melanie said to me grinning like a cat.

"That's a good idea sis," Mel agreed.

"I'm not exactly dressed to go clubbing," I said to them, looking down and realizing that I too had some spots of blood on me from punching the hell out of that guy. I thankfully wasn't wearing my Pumpkin Pete hoodie. "Besides, I'm working tonight."

"We'll owe O-Ushi a favor," Milta told me.

"Yeah," Melanie agreed, "and like we probably have some clothes that'll fit you, enough guys have left their laundry at our place."

I blushed a little at that. The idea of borrowing some clothes from their old hook ups was awkward to think about. "I don't know," I said trying to think of a reason to protest as I pulled up beside the sidewalk for their apartment.

"Hey!" Melanie said, cutting me off, "You want a tip right?" She asked me, opening the door to step out onto the sidewalk.

"Uh... yeah?" I said dumbly.

"Well your tip is getting a free suit and taking my sister and I out dancing tonight," she told me with a confident grin.

"Take it or leave it," Milta said, giving me a playful wink before they closed their doors and walked off for their apartment.

It took me a few seconds of watching their hips sway as they walked away to make my decision. "Fuck it," I sighed and opened the door to follow after them. I was supposed to be trying to get in with these crooks and if Junior was hosting a get together then that was where I wanted to be. And besides it wasn't like I'd ever had two gorgeous girls ask me to tag along and go dancing.

"Good call tough guy," Melanie said as we walked in and took the elevator up all the way to the penthouse.

"Wow!" I exclaimed stepping foot in their home and seeing the view of the city. "Nice place!"

"Thanks," Milta said moving past me.

I looked around idly as Melanie went to her room to change while Milta excused herself to look for something that I could wear. As nice and undoubtedly expensive as this place was, the twins were not exactly what I would call cleanly. They had plenty of junk and dirty clothes lying around and a kitchen that clearly didn't see regular use.

In a few minutes Milta came back with a black button up shirt and slacks and told me to change in the bathroom. I stripped off my bloody shirt and jeans and pulled the shirt and changed in a few minutes. The shirt and pants fit me well enough and I actually took a moment to check myself out in the mirror and try to make my mop of blonde hair somewhat ordered. I figured that if I was going dancing with a couple of girls I should at least try to clean up.

When I was sure that I did the best I could for my hair I stepped out to find the both girls waiting on me. Melanie had changed into a white short skirted silk dress with cyan flowers embroidered on it. It showed off her shapely legs and she still wore her pair of bladed heels. To my surprise Milta had also changed into a similar red and black dress but with a slightly longer more conservitive skirt. I wondered if they always coordinated their outfits.

"He actually looks kind of sharp Melanie," Milta said, stepping forward to hand me a black blazer to complete the look. I blushed silently as I accepted the jacket pulling it on.

"He certainly does Milta," Melanie agreed scanning me up and down with her emerald eyes like a predator, "those threads agree with him."

I scratched the back of my head nervously and chuckled, "thanks," I said following as we left out the door and took the elevator down. Within a few minutes we were back in the cab driving for the club once more.

We parked down the block like they had wanted me too the first time and I gave a glance down the alley to see that the 24K Dragons we had left there did in fact leave. I opened the door for Milta who smiled happily at me stepping out and grabbing my right arm. Melanie let herself out and did the same holding my left arm leaving me flaked on both sides as we walked to the club.

Having a girl on my arm for everyone to see felt strange, it was a good feeling but a foreign one for me at the time. Having two on the other hand was almost more than I could take. We passed the long line of people trying to get into the club and I could feel them all staring at me. The bouncer took one look at the twins and motioned for the three of us to go in. For maybe the first time in my life, I felt like a big-shot, it was a weird feeling I'll tell you that.

We stepped through the doors and my senses were assaulted by the flashing white lights and lasers above as a steady beat sounded from the DJ booth. I had never really been someone to frequent nightclubs but once my eyes adjusted to the flashing lights it actually looked kind of nice. The music was certainly nice and wasn't too loud and the checkered tiles of the dance floor glowed illuminating the dancers as they moved to the beat of the music.

Melanie took me by the hand to lead me immediately to the dance floor. I had expected that the three of us would ease into things with a couple drinks to start but the twins clearly wanted to lose themselves to the music.

Stepping onto that illuminated floor Melanie turned and looked me dead in the eye as she began moving to the rhythm of the music. We were in the middle of the throng of dancers and I tried my best to move with her.

I've always been a good dancer, years upon years of shared dance lessons with my sisters had certainly paid off. Honestly if I had known how much being able to dance well would have helped me down the line I wouldn't have complained so much growing up.

Milta danced too alongside us. The rhythm was easy to read and follow and I had no trouble mirroring the way the girls moved along with everyone else in the crowd. I was actually accustomed to far more elaborate dancing.

Melanie took my hands at one point and placed them square on her hips allowing me to touch her. We moved together, it was like the whole dance floor was a single entity moving as one to whatever beat the DJ laid down.

Milta slipped in beside her sister taking one of my hands and directing it to her waist as well. The motion was fluid and naturally blended with the rhythmic music. Sharing dance partners was clearly a natural thing for the two of them.

One of Milta's hands reached out and touched my chest running her slim fingers over me as if to feel what she could beneath the thin black shirt. Melanie turned around grinding her rear against me as her hands reached back and ran through my hair.

"Excited?" Melanie asked me looking back with a sinful grin.

I shuddered as her form slid against mine while Milta's hands touched my muscles. "I think you know the answer to that," I told her, feeling her butt wiggle against a particular part of my anatomy that should have told her exactly how excited I was.

Both of them giggled at my expense.

The dance continued on for several more songs. The three of us moved together into a form of harmony, communicating without words and saying more with glances and touches than anything else. Their moves and touches were certainly a lot bolder than mine, and they told me that they saw how nervous I was and they were enjoying every moment of teasing me.

As another song ended we left the dance floor behind and walked towards the bar. "Like you're a pretty good dancer," Milta complimented as I pulled out one of the bar stools for her and a second for her sister.

"I have plenty of practice," I explained taking a seat between the two of them leaning against the polished wood of the bar. "I took classes with my sisters growing up."

"Sisters?" Melanie asked me raising an eyebrow.

"Yup," I said with a nod, "all seven of them."

"Seven!?" Milta said.

I chuckled and scratched the back of my head, "yeah."

The two of them laughed. Melanie motioned for the bartender to come over. "What's your poison Jaune?"

I shrugged, "surprise me, I'll have whatever you're having," I said. I wasn't really an experienced drinker and save for coming to stomach some beers I had with Tonen and Toshi I wasn't sure what my taste was.

"Three gin and tonics," Melanei ordered. The bartender ignored the rest of the patrons trying to get his attention as he fixed up the drinks.

I took the glass and took a sip enjoying the flavor as I looked out across the club enjoying the look of the place as the music continued to lay down a beat and the lights continued to flash and move to the rhythm.

Plenty of the patrons were of course regular civilians but there were a lot of gangsters hanging around too. And not just Mistrali gangsters either, I noticed more than a few Vale natives like myself sporting their customary suits and bling. It was like a convention for wiseguys here. I recognized more than a few of my VIP customers here along with a bunch of others. Over the last several weeks of driving gangsters around I had become rather skilled at picking them out of a crowd.

"Jaune!" I heard my name and turned to see O-Ushi along with Tonen and Toshi approaching the bar.

O-Ushi was dressed in her usual suit with a jacket covering the twin revolvers she carried. "What the hell are you doing here kid? Aren't you supposed to be driving tonight?" she asked me.

"He's our date," Milta cut in setting a hand on my shoulder and setting her own glass down.

Toshi laughed at that looking at me, "careful kid, you get twice the heartbreak with these two."

"Speaking from personal experience Toshi?" I asked him.

"He wishes!" Both twins said in unison making Toshi grin guiltily at that.

"You should have asked me if you wanted to borrow him," O-Ushi said looking at the twins.

"He earned a night out," Melanie explained to her, "we spotted a group of 24k Dragons selling pills to a few clubbers less than a block away, we took care of them but when their backup arrived he stepped in, I think he's owed a night out."

O-Ushi looked back to me, "Is the cab fine?" She asked me.

"Not a scratch," I told her.

She nodded to me, "Alight enjoy the party," she told me looking back to the twins, "you two owe me a favor, ask me permission before you ask for forgiveness."

They both nodded in unison and O-Ushi stepped away with Tonen and Toshi following behind.

"Thanks," I told the two of them, "for a minute there I was worried I was in trouble."

I looked down at my drink, "I hope she's not too angry," I said.

Melanie laughed, "Whatever, O-Ushi can be a tough bitch but at times but if she was actually angry at you Jaune then she would have said so."

Milta nodded, picking up her gin and tonic, "she's a big softy for her people."

I nodded, "that's good to know," I told them taking another sip of my drink. I looked out over the club again enjoying the atmosphere and searching the crowd for more familiar faces when I caught a familiar flash of brown and pink hair. I did a double take spotting her looking right in my direction with her multicolored eyes.

They locked with mine and she blinked, sure enough the pink and brown switched somehow making them all the more alluring. It was Neo. I had idly thought about her a lot since that one night, she was certainly hard to forget and that diamond ring had become a memento I had taken to carrying around like some sort of good luck charm. She walked towards me, hips swaying in an outfit that framed them quite nicely.

Melanie turned to me and noticed that I was staring. She followed my gaze and saw just who I was gawking at. "Neo!" she said recognizing her and hopping off her bar stool to approach, Milta wasn't far behind.

When Melanie reached her she put her hands on the short girls shoulders and bent down kissing her right on the lips.

I had not been expecting that.

It wasn't a long kiss but I could plainly see that it was heated. Neo ran a hand through Melanie's hair as they parted and turned to Milta who also claimed a kiss from her as well.

"Hey Jaune, come meet our friend Neo," Melanie called waving me over.

I hopped off the bar stool and approached. "Friend?" I asked her raising a curious eyebrow at her.

"With benefits!" Melanie added with a sinful smirk.

I nodded in understanding feeling my face go scarlet as my imagination went a little wild with that information. The twins giggled, they were able to see right through me. "Awe look Milta he's blushing!" She teased me.

"He's probably imagining the benefits of being our friend Melanie," Milta said with a sinful smirk on her lips.

I ignored their teasing as best I could and turned my attention to Neo who was quietly watching with a measure of amusement. "Nice to meet you again," I said, offering her my hand.

She blinked at me and took it offering a friendly smile as she did so.

"You two like, know each other?" Milta asked, looking between the two of us.

"We met once," I explained with a chuckle scratching the back of my head, "on my first night driving O-Ushi's cab to be exactly."

Neo pulled her scroll out of her jacket and types on the screen with quick graceful hands. The twins clearly accustomed to the mute form of communication both pulled out their own scrolls and watched as the text message came through.

"You were her getaway driver!?" Milta asked, looking surprised at me

"On your first night?" Melanie added.

"I didn't exactly know that I'd be running from the cops," I explained, "things just sort of turned out that way, but hey we managed to lose the badges so I guess it turned out well."

Neo's fingers tapped across her scroll screen sending the twins another message. "She says you did well enough, but you could work on your acting a little, that cop almost had you."

I felt a prick of embarrassment at that. "I'll be cool next time," I assured Neo who gave me a confident nod. How was it that every little thing she did was so alluring?

"Hey if we're going to swap stories we should all have a drink in our hands," Melanie said taking my arm as Milta took Neo's leading us back to the bar.

"Bartender!" Milta called out as she took her seat with Neo next to me. "One White Atlassian!" she ordered for Neo.

The bartender got to work making the drink, grabbing a bottle of vodka and coffee liqueur off the shelf. "How long have you been working for O-Ushi?" Milta asked me.

"A little over a month," I answered her.

"I see, she must like you a lot to let you carry a gun in such a short amount of time," Melanie said with a grin.

I wondered for a moment how Melanie knew I had a gun on me until I remembered how her and her sister were grinding against me on the dance floor. "It's probably because I have aura and showed that I could deal with the 24k Dragons giving us trouble."

Neo's fingers danced across the screen of her scroll as it rested on the bar and the twins looked to it. "Neo says her good word about that jewelry job also probably helped with that."

I chucked and raised my gin and tonic to Neo, "yeah thanks for that," I said, "and thanks for the tip." I fished the diamond ring out of my pocket letting it glitter in the club's flashing lights. Neo smiled and winked at me, and I blushed like an idiot.

The bartender set down Neo's drink, I watched white clouds of cream swirling in the back like a storm as the pink and brown haired girl picked up the glass and took a sip. She gave the bartender a satisfied smile and a nod of approval.

The bartender lingered leaning in close to the girls. "Junior has business to discuss," he told them, "I suggest you all go back now."

Both twins sighed and tipped back their drinks downing the last few sips and leaving their empty glasses behind. "Oh well, if figures we'd have a meeting," she said looking at me and leaning in and planting a kiss upon my cheek before getting up, Milta leaned past Neo and gave my other cheek a matching kiss.

"Like, this will probably be a while so don't wait up for us Jaune," Milta said.

"But like call us sometime," Melanie told me as they walked away with Neo in tow, "we should go out again."

"I don't have either of your numbers!" I called out to them watching them go.

"Yes you do!" both twins said in unison as Milta pulled out my scroll and tossed it to me. I hadn't even noticed that it was missing. They probably lifted it off of me while we were dancing. I opened it and saw that sure enough they both had given me their numbers. I looked back to watch them walk away, Neo looked back and gave me a wink.

Why was I suddenly so attracted to thieves? I wondered, feeling more amused than annoyed that they had pick pocketed my scroll and unlocked it. I couldn't deny that those girls had style.

I stayed at the bar to finish my drink and decided to order another. I asked the bartender to surprise me with another gin cocktail.

"Enjoying the top shelf stuff?" Toshi asked, patting me on the shoulder and taking a seat next to me.

I nodded setting down the gin martini the waiter had made me down. "I heard Junior called a meeting," I said to him, "You should probably go back."

"Nah that's not for me," Toshi said, "this meeting is for official clan members only."

"I thought you were a member of the clan," I said, feeling a little loose lipped from the alcohol.

He shook his head, "Not like that," he explained, "not yet at least, I'm what you might call… an associate, I work directly for Tonen but I have no say in clan affairs."

"But you will one day right?" I asked him.

"I fucking hope so, but for now I'm just making my way earning for the clan and proving that I got something to offer Junior," he told me looking into his glass of whiskey.

"Well here's hoping you make it one day," I said, raising my glass for him.

"Here here!" he said, clinking his drink with mine.

We drank for a while together talking a little here and there about the gang and about the cars I had helped Tonen's boys lift. "Can I ever be a part of the clan?" I asked after drinking what was probably my third gin martini.

Toshi gave me a look, "afraid not," he said, "It's a Mistralian clan, meaning only Mistraians get in, the best you could ever hope to be is an associate like me."

I nodded drunkenly at that. I should have figured, criminals flock together on what binds them. As much as I had begun carving out a little place for myself here I was still very much the outsider. And that wasn't ever going to really change.

"You said those twins are twice the heartbreak," I mentioned, "is there a history there?"

"Not with me," he clarified, "a friend of mine took them out a couple of times and let's just say that he couldn't understand the concept of casual sex very well."

"Got ya," I said, understanding his meaning. I already figured the twins were just being fun and playful, but I couldn't help myself but wonder how things could have gone if Junior hadn't called a meeting and things progressed past dancing and drinks.

"Whoa!" Toshi said, pointing across the club.

I followed his gaze and saw a ginger haired man strutting across the club in a white jacket and a black bowler hat and a cane in hand. "Who's that?" I asked, trying to recognize him.

"That's Roman fucking Torchwick," Toshi told me, "he's the head of the Torchwick crime family, if he's here for the meeting something serious must be going down."

I looked at the man striding across the club. This was the man that Ozpin suspected of being behind the dust robberies. Despite that I couldn't help but admire the swagger with which he walked and the cut of his suit and the cool but determined look in his eye. For a moment I pondered what it must have felt like to be him.


	5. Chapter 4: How I got My Big Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I hope when my time comes that I die decently in bed. I don’t want to be murdered beside the garbage cans in some Chicago alley.” ~ Bugs Moran

A few nights after going to Junior’s club is when things really started to change for me. 

I was working another shift in the cab past midnight when I got a notice for a VIP pickup across town near the old warehouse district. It seemed like a completely normal pick up to me at the time so I drove there thinking that I’d probably be picking up some wiseguy and probably get a handsome tip for my troubles.

I pulled up around back like the app had instructed me too and parked waiting for my customer to show himself messaging him through the app that I was outside. I watched as the back door opened and I spotted O-Ushi along with Tonen and a few others, my pickup was this one guy among them named Jiro.

They were all taking their time finishing their cigarettes and chatting it up. I couldn’t hear a thing they were talking about so I just waited for them. I caught sight of something moving at the corner of my eye and I looked to see a mangy alley cat scurrying down an alley. It stopped and looked right at O-Ushi and her boys, then right at me. This little black and orange cat stared directly at me with a pair of bright yellow eyes. I immediately felt kind of bad for the mangy little thing as one look at it’s face showed a number of scars marking its face. It had clearly had a lot of fights with other cats in it’s time living on the streets.

Just as fast the cat turned away from me and sprinted down the alley. I turned back to look at O-Ushi and my pickup all dropping their cigarette butts on the ground and stamping them out. They turned down to walk to their own cars or to get into my cab when down the long alley a van rolled down the alley with the side door wide open. It took me a second to realize that something was wrong.

O-Ushi and her boys saw danger immediately. They scrambled for whatever cover they could and drew their guns from their jackets. A masked man in the van raised a rifle and fired. Flashes erupted from the muzzle illuminating the alley as the gunman strafed the alleyway with automatic fire.

“Oh Shit!” I cursed taking a little longer than I wanted to admit to get over my shock. I watched as the gunfire struck two including my pickup Jiro. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking then, but the minute I was able to process what was happening I went into action. 

I put the car into gear and stomped on the gas moving down the alley and past O-Ushi, shots struck the cab so I turned the car so it could be used as cover blocking a section of the alley and providing what cover I could for O-Ushi and her boys. Several bullets shattered the windows and pierced the side. One went right through the door and struck me only to be absorbed by my aura. 

I threw the door open and stepped out looking at the two bodies bleeding next to a bunch of garbage. O-Ushi moved behind the engine block of my cab with both revolvers in hand and leveled. They boomed like thunder when she fired them sending echoes down the alleyways. Between the machine guns from the van and the various pistols going off my world was surrounded by ear splitting gunfire.

Several shots from the gunner struck O-Ushi, her blue aura flared and she dropped down behind the engine block throwing the cylinders of her revolvers open and spilling the brass to the ground.

“Good thinking kid,” she complimented as rounds continued to tear my cab apart. Tonen was stuck in the doorway hiding behind the little wall. He had a type of machine pistol out and the stock unfolded as he fired bursts at the van and the gunner.

“Get inside!” He said to O-Ushi who tucked one of the gun barrels in her armpit to free her hand to reload the other. He aimed down the alley and released a hail of automatic fire from his little compact machine gun. 

“Come on kid!” She said looking at me, “and get that iron out!” 

I blinked stupidly trying to figure out what she meant, a second slow I realized that she was talking about by gun. I reached into my waistband and pulled out the snubnose revolver she had given me. I felt like I was carrying a pop gun but it was all I had at the moment. 

Tonen emptied his gun down the alley and ejected the magazine before reloading with practiced ease. “Go, we’ll cover!” He said opening fire towards the van once more.

O-Ushi and I both stood to make a break for the doorway trying to keep low. Tonen’s machine pistol clicked and he cursed as his weapon jammed suddenly. Another one of his boys ducked down having experienced a second jam, and a third. But we were already in the open so all we could do was move. I felt several rounds impact against my aura as I sprinted.

A loud sudden crack echoed through the alley behind me, but I kept running for the doorway trying to ignore the sounds of gunfire. When I reached the doorway I turned and saw that O-Ushi was not behind me. She was on the ground bleeding.

“Fuck!” I cursed. I reacted purely on instinct and ran back out as Toenen managed to clear the jam in his weapon and continue to spray the area with bullets. I reached O-Ushi and tried picking her up, she was a big woman so believe me it wasn’t easy lifting her up. She was soaked in blood already and I saw the wound to her shoulder. Several more shots struck me as I tried lifting her up.

I tried dragging her to safety. “J-jaune?” she asked regaining her senses and moving to pick herself up. I let her hold onto my shoulder and helped her limp to the cover of the doorway when another crack echoed down the alleyway. It struck me that time, my aura flared up to stop the round but fizzled out dissolving into light.

I rushed her to safety as fast as I could and took cover behind the wall letting her hang off of me. I don’t know how I managed to get there so fast and without getting gunned down but I did. “She’s hurt,” I told Tonen, “I don’t know what to do!” I said trying to put pressure on the wound.

“Take her inside and get her out of here!” Tonen said, dropping the empty machine pistol and drawing a pistol from his coat. “Her car is on the other side of the warehouse, go!” 

I obeyed, I threw open the door and helped her limp with her through the warehouse. I raised the little pistol and scanned the area just in case there was someone there but it was empty. 

“Let go, I can walk!” O-Ushi said as I helped her move.

I listened to her and let her walk, she put pressure on the wound as we cut through the mostly empty warehouse and left on the other side. A nice cool blue car was parked by the curb and we rushed to it. She handed me the keys and with a click of the fob the doors opened by themselves. I helped her into her seat keeping an eye out in case someone tried shooting us but no one came. I hopped into the driver seat, inserted the key and took off like a rocket down the street.

It was a very fast car. I raced away and tried to think of where to go next. “Where’s the nearest hospital?” I asked her, keeping my eyes on the road and ignoring all stop signs and lights.

“No hospital!” She hissed at me, “take me to Junior’s club!” 

“You’re bleeding!” I protested to her.

“Just fucking do it! They can patch me up there just drive!” She hissed at me and I obeyed.

I raced through town, once I was sure that I had put enough distance between the shooters and us I started to become a little more respectful to traffic laws. Getting pulled over with a bleeding gangster in the passenger seat was not going to help the situation, but I still considered the speed limit a guideline and made rolling stops when I could.

O-Ushi managed to get her scroll out and made a call for Junior. I didn’t listen very well as I put my focus on the road but I heard her explain that she was going to need a doctor. “Park in the back,” she told me cursing to herself as she kept what pressure she could on the wound. 

I nodded numbly as I drove and she reached over and patted my chest and torso. “Did you get hit kid?” she asked me as I made a rolling stop at a sign.

“I don’t think so, no,” I told her, “just worry about yourself.

I managed to get there in good time and without getting the attention of a cop. I did as I was instructed and parked in the back alley where indeed a number of Junior’s boys were already waiting and rushed out to help O-Ushi inside. I moved the follow ,stepping in through the back entrance to see that she was going to be properly taken care of, but I was stopped.

A big bearded man stepped in front of me blocking my path. I looked up into his grey eyes as he stared down at me. “Come with me kid,” he said, leading me up a flight of stairs into a back room where a window gave a view of the club below. Looking around at the rich decor I realized this was probably Junior’s officer and that this was almost certainly Junior.

He moved behind his desk and thinking that I was supposed to talk to him I almost sat in the chair in front of it.

“Don’t sit down!” he snapped at me.

I froze like a deer caught in headlights. I wondered for a moment what the issue was when I looked at my hand coated with red. I was a bloody fucking mess and I almost sat down and ruined his nice leather chair. 

“Sorry kid,” Junior said as I opened my mouth to apologize. He pointed to a door off to the side, “go wash up, I’ll have someone bring you some clean clothes, then I wanna head about what happened.”

I nodded to him. “Thanks,” I said stepping into his private bathroom and taking a look at myself in the mirror. I looked like I belonged in a horror movie. There was red all over me and I shuddered from it.

I stripped my bloody clothes off and checked myself for any possible wounds before stepping into the shower. I watched as the water around my feet turned red and swirled down the drain. I scrubbed my face clean and took the liberty to use Junior’s shampoo to wash the blood out of my hair. 

I replayed the events in my mind. Replaying the images of that van pulling out and the gunmen opening fire, the wounded guys huddling for cover and trying to return fire with their pistols. I wondered if Tonen and the others had even escaped. It wasn’t anything like the fights I had experienced in Beacon, the fights were direct there. I was used to seeing my opponent across the ring, or for seeing grimm charging to fight up close. Not a shadowy figure with a machine gun.

The hot water was calming at the very least and it helped me center myself. I hated the idea of making Junior wait on me but I was happy to at least catch my breath and relax for a moment before getting interrogated by Junior.

Junior. I had been wondering for awhile at that point if I’d ever come face to face with the guy and suddenly here I was taking a shower in his private bathroom. I hardly managed to get an actual impression of the guy, he certainly had the commanding figure and voice I would have expected of a crime boss, but having him apologize to me had certainly been unexpected. 

A knock sounded at the door and I figured it was probably those clothes Junior had mentioned. “Just leave the clothes on the counter I’ll be out in a minute,” I said scrubbing behind my ears. I heard the door open and close and assumed that they had done just as I had asked, leaving them on the counter next to the sink. I turned the water off and grabbed a towel off the rack before stepping out.

“Hey Jaune!”

I practically jumped out of my skin hearing that voice. My wet bare foot almost slipped and sent me crashing to the floor. I dropped the towel and braced against the wall. I looked over and saw Melanie giggling as she leaned against the door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked scrambling to pick up my towel and cover myself.

“I heard you drove O-Ushi here so I thought I’d volunteer to bring you your clothes,” she explained motioning to a folded set of sweatpants and a t-shirt she had left on the counter. 

“So you snuck in here while I was taking a shower?” I asked her to retreat behind the shower wall to dry myself in privacy.

“Like what can I say? I’m a curious gal.” she said proudly, “how are you holding up?”

“Fine,” I said resting my back against the tile wall of the shower. “How’s O-Ushi?” I asked, wanting an answer to my biggest concern.

“Patched up and pissed off,” she explained, “we got a good doc, can treat bullet wounds in her sleep.”

“You keep a doctor at the club?” I asked, wondering how one was already here and ready to treat her.

“We have one on call,” she explained to me, “some gal that wants a fast way to pay off her student loans and doesn’t ask questions. Hospitals tend to call the police when someone gets shot up.”

“Makes sense,” I said, pulling the towel around my waist and stepping out to grab the clothes. Melanie remained leaning against the door arms crossed over her chest. “Do you know what happened to the others?” I asked her, “I left while they were still in a fire fight.”

“They called Junior, a few wounded but everyone is alive and well,” she told me.

I let out a sigh of relief, “that’s good to hear,” I said, “I felt like I abandoned them.”

Melanie gave me a serious hard look in my eye. “Nobody thinks that Jaune,” she said to me, “no one.”

“Thanks,” I said looking at the clothes in my hand, “can I get some privacy?” I asked her.

She shrugged and released a sigh, “Whatever, have it your way.” She said opening the bathroom door and disappearing behind it. 

Relieved to change in privacy I quickly slipped on the sweatpants and shirt and stepped barefoot back into Junior’s office. Melanie was there along with Milta who was busy making a drink at a little bar on his desk.

“Sorry Jaune,” Milta said, “I told her that was a bad idea.”

“Whatever,” Melanie said again in that haughty tone of hers, “I thought a little surprise would be good for him, help him relax a little.”

Milta dropped a couple of ice cubes into a glass and poured a dark amber liquid into it before walking over and handing it to me. “Here, take the edge off, it’s Junior’s favorite.”

I nodded a thanks and accepted the glass taking a sip of the strong smoky whiskey, it burned like nothing else. “Thanks,” I rasped to her, getting a giggle from Melanie.

“That stuff’s an acquired taste, you’re lucky I didn’t serve it to you neat,” Milta said, patting me on the shoulder.

I just nodded and took another sip prepared for the harsh taste and burn this time. I finally sat down in one of Junior’s chairs. Milta perched herself on Junior’s desk looking at me. “So like, what happened exactly? Who tried wacking O-Ushi?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” I looked back and saw Junior walk in through the door. O-Ushi was with him, arm in a sling and a bandage on her shoulder. She wore a simple tank top but for the first time I could see just how heavily tattooed her arms and shoulders were. Beautiful blue and orange koi fish were swimming in a sea of black.

“I want the two of us to talk to Mr. Arc alone,” he told the twins.

Milta hopped off the desk and Melanie followed her giving their boss no lip or sass as they left the three of us alone in his office. O-Ushi took the chair next to me as Junior grabbed the same crystal decanter Milta had poured my drink from and filled a glass of his own. O-Ushi made to grab for the decanter and fill a drink for herself but Junior slapped her hand away. “You lost a lot of blood,” he said to her, “have a smoke instead.”

O-Ushi sighed but obeyed taking out a cigarette and lighting it before handing me the pack and lighter. I lit one up as well and took in a calming first drag.

“Tell me what you saw kid,” Junior said, getting straight to business.

I shrugged, “not much,” I told him, “the guy in the van with the rifle was wearing a ski mask and I didn’t get a good look at the driver, I didn’t even see the second shooter.”

He nodded clearly expecting this. “Did you see anything before the shooting started?” He asked me.

I thought about that scarred up cat for a second but shook my head no. It was just an alley cat, there was nothing really strange or unusual about that. 

“I’m telling you boss it was the 24k Dragons,” O-Ushi cut in, “its gotta be.”

“We don’t know that,” Junior told her, “and this kind of hit isn’t their style.”

“Then it’s probably the fucking Atlasians!” she told him, “First that weird blonde girl smashes up the club and embarrasses us all, then the Dragons throw their lot in to sell dope, and now we got guys in an armored van trying to gun us down. There’s a fucking pattern here Junior! The Prince smelled blood in the water and like the fucking shark he is he’s going in for the kill.”

I listened silently sipping my drink. I had no idea who this Prince guy was but I certainly saw her point. If bad things like this kept happening then word would probably spread.

Junior set his glass of whiskey down and folded his hand on his desk. “And what would you have me do O-Ushi?” He asked her calmly. “If he is behind this should I just race off to war? A shark smelling blood is one thing but agitating it is another, for all we know he wants this to lead us to a war. Is that what you want?”

“I want us to show our fangs! I want people to know that the Kuroi Kuma clan should not be fucked with lightly!” She told him angrily. “I want them to know that we don’t take this shit lying down!”

Junior nodded and took a sip of his drink. “And how do you intend to do this?”

“I’m your Hammer! Let me strike back at the 24k Dragons. I won’t touch the Atleasians but I’ll make those traitors hurt so that everyone knows who runs this neighborhood. Three years ago this shit wouldn’t have been tolerated.”

“Three years ago we didn’t have the trigger happy Prince to deal with,” Junior told her, “three years ago there was an understanding in this town and he doesn't play by our rules.”

“So you’re gonna let the kid push you around!?” She spat at him. “If that’s you’re fucking attitude you might as well give him the keys to the club!”

“Enough!” Junior dangerously slamming his fist down on the table/

O-Ushi’s eyes went wide and she stood up and bowed to him. “Forgive me Shatei-Gashira,” she said formally, “I forgot my manners.”

“Blood loss can do that,” Junior said motioning for her to sit back down which she did calmy. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you know as well as I do this is a delicate situation. The Atleasians are resting on their haunches for another war and I’m not eager to give it to them.”

“It’s going to happen sooner or later boss,” she told him, “we both know that.”

“Probably,” Junior agreed looking over at me, “but if it does come then I want it to be later, but this is a discussion for another time.”

O-Ushi looked back over to be and nodded in agreement. It seemed that too much had already been said in my presence. 

Junior stood up and held his hand out. “How about I get you another drink kid.”

I nodded to him and handed him my glass which he proceeded to refill with ice and his whiskey. “Mel and Mil told me about you stepping in with those punks selling pills down the street.” He said to me, crossing his arms.

I shrugged, “Just giving a helping hand.”

He smirked at that, “and I appreciate you bringing me my employee back alive.”

I looked at O-Ushi, “I just sort of… reacted,” I explained to him, “I wasn’t even really thinking you know?”

He laughed, a deep full bellied laugh, “well I like the way you don’t think,” he said giving my shoulder a pat. He gave O-Ushi a look, “I’ll give you two a moment, you know what you have to do.”

He walked out and I was left staring at my boss wondering just what she had to do.

She gave me a hard intense look right in my eye. “You saved my life back there kid.” 

“It was nothing,” I protested, “like I said I wasn’t even thinking about my actions, I just did what I did.”

“No!” O-Ushi said to me seriously and a chill went up my spine. “Don’t deny what you did and dishonor yourself Jaune, you came back for me, you even took a bullet for me.”

I wanted to keep protesting, all it did was shatter my aura but I was left unharmed. But she wasn’t interested in me being humble about it. “I’d do it again,” I told her honestly.

Jaune… you aren’t gonna be driving my cabs anymore, you’re done with that,” she told me seriously.

“I’m fired?” I asked lamely.

“You’re promoted,” she said to me cracking a grin, “I owe you a debt kid, you’d bleed for me so I’ll bleed for you, starting tomorrow you’re my associate and I’m gonna make sure I pay you back as honor demands.”

I blinked. Her associate? Like how Toshi was for Tonen? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Almost everyone one of my fellow cab drivers wanted exactly that, they wanted in, I was in. Maybe not an official member of the clan but I was going to be a part of it, as much a part of it as I could be. “I don’t know what to say.” I told her honestly.

“Say you’ll take the job.”

“I’ll take the job,” I said, unable to hold back a bit of surprised laughter.

She grinned at me, “good, I’ll pick you up at your place tomorrow at ten, now come on you’re the man of the hour downstairs.”

We got up and I carried my drink, I felt underdressed in just a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt but I knew better than to refuse. “Can I ask you a question, boss?” 

“Shoot!” O-Ushi told me.

“Why did you let me drive your cabs?” I asked her, “everyone else turned me down for a job, why’d you say yes?”

She smirked at me, “woman’s intuition,” she answered, “I had a good feeling about you.”

That made my stomach turn as I made a mental note to call Ozpin with the news.


	6. Clothes make the man, and history made The Clan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve graduated ten universities of hard knocks…a racketeer is a fellow who tries to get power at the expense of entrenched power.” ~ Frank Costello

I spent most of the remaining night partying it up in Junior’s club. I drank for free, shot some pool and retold the story of how I risked getting shot to save O-Ushi. I must have told that story a dozen different times that night, I got sick of it. But as the night got late I was finally able to get a ride back to my apartment to sleep.

I woke up hours later and retrieved the burner scroll from its hiding place and called Ozpin. He picked up and I went straight to telling him everything I could about that night. I told him about the hit I had survived, I told him about the conversation O-Ushi had with Junior risking war with the Atleasians and I finally explained to him the most important part, that O-Ushi was going to be making me an associate.

“That’s excellent news Mr. Arc,” he said to me, “this puts you in the perfect position to learn about the dust robberies,” he explained to me, “I expect you to show initiative in your new job, learn what you can and make everyone see that you’re ambitious to move up and earn for Junior.”

“Will do,” I assured him, pouring myself a cup of coffee, “associates are usually the ones handling the real work so I’m sure that I can push my way into the dust racket, if it’s half as bad as the news is saying it must be a booming business at the moment.”

“Business?” Ozpin said, “you almost sound like a criminal calling it as such.”

“I’ve picked up a few habits trying to blend,” I admitted grabbing a pack of cigarettes and shaking one out to go with my morning coffee. “I can’t very well pretend to be one of these people if I don’t talk like them.”

“That’s very good, that will aid you well in your mission,” he told me.

“I hope so,” I answered, taking my first sweet drag of the morning. “If you don’t mind I have a few questions, I was hoping that you might be able to fill in a couple blanks.”

“Certainly Mr. Arc,” he said.

“Everyone seems to be tying the start of Junior’s problems to a blonde girl coming in and wrecking his club,” I explained to him, “it seems Junior lost a lot of face with that particular incident. I asked around last night after O-Ushi gave me the job and the twins explained that some huntress girl came in and smashed the place up after demanding some information from Junior. If it was a huntress I was thinking you might know a thing or two about this.”

“Ah yes,” Ozpin said, “that was the work of Miss Xaio Long.”

Yang? She wasn’t a huntress but a huntress in training. I had been wondering just how much damage one woman could do to Junior in his own club full of wiseguys but hearing her name it suddenly made a lot more sense. Yang was a powerhouse to say the least. 

“Did you orchestrate that?” I asked him, voicing a suspicion that I had carried since hearing that a huntress had been involved. 

“Miss Xiao Long was acting on her own I’m afraid,” he told me, “though I will admit that I pulled a few strings to keep her from any legal repercussions, but men like Junior are always happy to keep the law at a distance so it was hardly difficult.”

“I see. O-Ushi should be picking me up soon so I’ll talk to you later,” I hung up the phone and thought about everything.

The conversation had left me with a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth. I knew that I shouldn’t have been opposed, Junior was a crime boss after all so a little trouble coming his way was to be expected, deserved even. But Ozpin pulling strings to keep Yang out of trouble didn’t sit right with me, if legal action was going to be troublesome for Junior then I thought that would be exactly what Ozpin might want. It could help expose parts of his operation. Sure Yang might get burned a bit for it but she wasn’t exactly an innocent party either.

But what’s more that little incident seemed to be a spark that ignited a spreading flame. If the Atleasians were looking at it as an opportunity to make a move against Junior and start a war then it seemed plenty of people were going to get hurt, and not just Junior’s gangsters, all his neighborhoods could be in the crossfire. What’s more if it did lead to a war then someone would have to be left standing, and so far the idea of those drug pushing Atleasians being left the victors was an unappetizing thought. 

But I supposed that the big picture was better left for Ozpin to consider. I just needed to keep getting friendly with Junior’s clan and keep my ear to the ground about any dust robberies. Sticking my nose where it didn’t belong seemed to be a bad idea so I just shrugged off my worries and tried to focus on the task in front of me.

By the time I finished my morning coffee and cigarette my regular phone buzzed on the counter with a text from O-Ushi telling me to come downstairs. I grabbed my jacket and gun and came right down. I stepped into the laundromat to see O-Ushi talking to my landlord Hana who looked more than pleased to have her visiting her quaint little business.

“Mr. Arc,” Hana said, turning to look at me, “you never mentioned that you worked for Miss O-Ushi.”

I shrugged to her. “I was just a cab driver,” I said, “no big deal.”

“Oh but it is!” Hana said bowing to me, “if I had known I would have done more to make you feel welcome here!”

I smiled, “you’re cooking has been more than welcoming,” I assured her, bowing in return. 

Hana grinned, “He is a good boy,” she said looking to O-Ushi, “he minds his manners.”

O-Usagi nodded in agreement, “And he’s brave to boot. Don’t worry Hana I’ll take good care of him. Say hi to the grandkids for me,” O-Ushi said, turning for the door, ''Come on Jaune, we got a long day ahead of us.”

I followed her outside where her car was waiting. One look inside showed that thankfully the blood had been thoroughly cleaned since last night. I got into the passenger seat and buckled up. “How’s the shoulder?” I asked her a little surprised that she looked so normal despite being shot just last night.

“Sore,” she said bitterly, “but my aura came and closed up the tunnel I had running through it, but it still hurts when I move.”

I nodded pleased to see that despite her injury she was doing well. “How do you know Hana so well?” I asked her as we rolled through the neighborhood.

“She does work for us,” she explained to me, “that laundromat helps us launder our money. Which means you’ll be making collections there every week, she should have several thousand lien for us, we’ll go over the specifics later.”

“So what?” I asked, “my job is to go around picking up money for you?”

“More or less,” she explained, “every business has a different day of the week you should collect on, some help clean our money, most pay protection, and others… well let’s just say we’re silent investors collecting our returns.”

“How am I supposed to know what to collect from who?” I asked her.

“We’ll teach you,” she said looking over at me, “but don’t you ever write any of this down! We’ll see that you memorize what you need to know but we’d rather you forget and miss a payment than have the wrong people get ahold of our notes and use it as evidence, understand?”

I nodded to her as I looked outside at the now familiar streets of Little Mistral, “So collections, what else?” 

“Help out around the neighborhood, most of the businesses around here we’ve either invested in or pay us for protection. If anyone is causing trouble, knock some sense into them, and if they need help then give it to them, we can’t launder money or collect on our investments if the businesses aren’t earning so make sure they keep earning.” She explained to me.

“And if the businesses don’t want to cough up the lien for protection then what?” I asked her, “Do I show them why they need protection?”

He shook her head and laughed a little at me. “That shouldn’t happen kid,” she told me, “we’ve been in this neighborhood for a long time, the people here know that our protection is within their best interests, otherwise any two bit crook can rob them.”

I nodded feeling a little relieved that I wasn’t expected to intimidate store owners or anything like that. With the 24k Dragons picking fights I knew that I was probably going to have to get my hands dirty protecting the local businesses but I could live with that.

“But seriously, in the hypothetical situation where they don’t want to pay, or they get behind on their payments what should I do?” I asked her hoping that it didn’t come to that.

“We’re running a business not a charity,” she explained to me, “plenty of our people fall on hard times and get behind on the bills, you can extend their loan with interest, these places are like money faucets there’s no need to turn them off, but if they take too long eventually you need to collect.”

“I see,” I said, feeling nauseous.

“It’s not pretty kid, believe me,” she said sympathetically, “but it’s business, and these people know what they’re getting into when they accept our lien, it isn’t that different from a bank. If you foreclose on a loan the bank will repossess, we’re not any different.”

“But this is your neighborhood, your own people,” I said, not thinking about who I was talking to and the fact that I should have just nodded along instead of expressing doubts for the job.

O-Ushi sighed, “If you feel sorry for someone you can forgive the debt,” she explained to me, “I’ve done that a couple of times and it helps keep a good relationship in the neighborhood, but you settle it from your own pocket, me and Junior still get our cut, so if you want to be charitable fine, but you do it on your own dime.”

“That’s… comforting.”

“Just don’t let everyone pull at your heart strings, I had to learn that the hard way. Some people will try whatever they can to get out of paying so practice your generosity wisely. If some idiot took our money for his store and lost it all gambling you say, Fuck you, pay me! Otherwise every other jerk will think they can take advantage of us. Understood?.”

“Understood,” I said, feeling that I was starting to get a grip on what my job would be exactly.

“Say it for me kid,” she said looking over at me.

“Say what?” I asked stupidly.

“What do you say if a bum tries to not pay you?” she asked me.

“Fuck you, pay me!” I said.

“The horse I bet on at the track broke its leg right out the gate,” she said pressing the issue.

“Fuck you, pay me!”

“The health inspector shut my restaurant down, I had no idea there were rats in the pantry,” She continued pressing me.

“Fuck you, pay me!” I shouted at her.

“No kid,” she laughed, “we bribe the health inspector and charge the restaurant owner for the trouble, but I like your energy you’re sounding like a wiseguy already. Now let’s get you dressed like one.”

I looked outside and saw that we had left Little Mistral behind and were driving through the downtown area. Passing by various stores with price ranges I had would have never been able to afford. They showed the latest fashions, I spotted the very jewelry store that Neo had robbed, it was still in business apparently with a whole bunch of new merchandise filling the window. “I’m buying a suit?” I asked her, even with the substantial stash of cash I had accumulated these stores would bankrupt me.

“Don’t insult me kid,” she said, “you fucking saved my life, I’m paying for everything today.”

“I’m just grateful for the job,” I told her, feeling more than a little overwhelmed that she was going to be dropping that kind of money on me.

“I didn’t give you the job because you saved my life Jaune, I gave you the job because you got the stones for it,” she explained, “but a job is a job, not a favor and certainly no way to pay you back for what you did.”

She pulled the car to the curb next to the store and we got out. The store sign read Vinnie’s Threads, it was small and quaint, it didn’t sport any big flashy windows showing the merchandise, just a simple red painted shop with a faceless man in a suit with a bowler hat and cane on the door.

“Not that I mind wearing a suit, but is it really wise for all wiseguys to wear them?” I asked her, closing the car door, “I mean, I can practically spot a wiseguy a mile away because of their dress code.”

O-Ushi chuckled, “Maybe so kid,” she said, “If those crooks people call politicians can wear suits, then so can we. The people around the neighborhood need to see who you are and know who you work for.”

“But won’t the cops know who I work for?” I asked her.

“So what if they do? Let them see your fancy threads and know how you paid for them. Wearing a suit isn’t a crime, I know some lawyers that’d love to hear that excuse brought up in court, I can almost see it right now, “I’m wearing a suit officer, why don’t you arrest me?” they’d have a field day with that. And believe me, some badges knowing who you work for isn’t always a bad thing.”

That made sense, it was like bragging to everyone that you worked for Junior’s clan. Clean cops had to deal with seeing how much richer you were for flaunting the law, while the dirty ones saw walking opportunities. 

We opened the door and stepped inside the store. A middle aged man turned his head from behind a counter and smiled brightly.

“O-Ushi!” He greeted throwing his hands up and approaching her to lay a friendly kiss on both her cheeks.

“Marcello!” O-Ushi greeted him patting his shoulders. “How are you, how are your children.”

“Bah!” Marcello said disfavorably, “my sons are useless, thanks the gods for my daughters.” He looked over at me and studied me up and down. “I take it you’re not here to shop for yourself.”

O-Ushi nodded to him, “Kid needs a whole new wardrobe, it's all on me, though I recently had one of your suits unfortunately ruined, so I’ll take another. You know my sizes.”

“Very well,” He said moving to me and taking my hand, “I am Marcello Gentilli, it is a pleasure to meet you Mr...”

“Arc,” I told him shaking his hand, “Jaune Arc, I thought the sign outside said Vinnie’s?”

“Named for my father, this was his shop.” He explained to me.

“He’s the best in the city,” O-Ushi told me and turned to Marcello “get him sized up for a dozen with all the fixings.”

I felt dizzy, “a dozen!?” 

O-Ushi grinned, “get used to picking up dry cleaning kid,” she said, “we’ll get some other threads for you to wear in the meantime, Marcello’s art takes time.”

My knees were weak. Almost everything I could see in the shop was bank breaking, these jackets alone were worth hundreds of lien, I could hardly imagine what a tailor made one would have cost me.

“All the fixings?” Marcello said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“The kid saved my life,” O-Ushi told him.

Marcello grinned like a cat that caught the canary, “then right this way,” he said, taking me by the shoulder and leading me to the back. He took to a back room and started measuring me as I looked on the wall at the various pictures of people that came into the story smiling and shaking hands with either Marcello or who I guessed was his father. I looked at a picture of Marcello’s father shaking hands with “Lucky” Luca Torchwick according to the plaque beneath the picture. And right next to it was a picture of Marcello standing between a younger Junior and Roman Torchwick grinning proudly with his hands on both their shoulders.

Now, I’ve never really been a fashionably conscious person. Getting thoroughly sized up I found myself being paraded with all sorts of different fabrics and patterns and colors. I had never been fitted for a suit, I mean I wore cheap ones growing up and going to funerals and weddings and other formal occasions but that was just stuff from the thrift store. 

I had to choose fabrics for shirts, vests, pants, jacket linings, single breasted or double breasted, buttons, fucking buttons. And it didn’t end there, after we got the basics down for my tailored suits we chose the more casual ones. I got everything from charcoal black to navy blue. I got belts, cufflinks, pocket squares, watches, ties. I didn’t even know how to tie a fucking tie and I suddenly had more of them than I had pairs of pants. Hats, trilby, fedoras, ivy, I got them all. 

And as I discovered, all the fixing included kevlar linings sewn between the layers. This wasn’t just a fashion statement for wiseguys, it was armor.

O-Ushi didn’t care about the cost, if I looked at something more than five seconds she added it to the list. She called up one of her boys to take all it to my place and we left Vinnie’s with me wearing a casual black two piece with a red shirt like so many of Junior’s wiseguys liked to wear. I had a gold watch on my wrist, a thin gold chain around my neck. I used to think bling like that was ridiculous and here I suddenly was wearing it like I was some kind of big shot.

“Hungry?” O-Ushi asked me once we had finished with that insane shopping spree.

“Famished,” I answered, I hadn’t even eaten that day, my breakfast had been black coffee and a cigarette.

“Good, let’s get a steak,” she said, getting back in the car and driving me to his place called Georgetti’s and got us a table like it was a normal diner. She didn’t need a reservation here, they knew her and for people like her there was always a table available.

“So Jaune, what do you know about the neighborhood?” she asked me as I quelled my hunger with bread rolls.

“What do you mean?” I asked her, trying to swallow as I applied butter to the next roll.

“I mean how much do you know about Little Mistral’s history?” She explained. 

“I know a little,” I said, “plenty of VIPs I drove around liked to talk about the old days, I heard it all began with Mountain Glenn. But why is that important?”

“It’s important because our history defines us,” she said looking into my eyes, “it brought us to where we are today and because a lot of our current troubles could have been avoided if people had bothered to learn from it.”

“Then teach me,” I said to her understanding by her tone that indeed it was important to her, I felt like Professor Oobleck would be nodding in agreement with her little speech if he was sitting with us.

She picked up her glass of wine and took a sip before speaking. “Mountain Glenn is just the tip of the iceberg kid, but those guys were kind of right telling you that’s where it began, you know much about Mountain Glenn?”

“No, not really,” I told her, my knowledge of history was garbage.

“It was a project to expand Vale, the Kingdom used tunnels to help transport workers to build the city and Little Mistral was founded because Mistrali labor was cheap so there was a flood of immigrants wanting a job, tons of clans took advantage of the new arrivals, there was business to be had there especially since the workers had vices. The clans had all sorts of rackets with booze, and smoke and pussy and just about everything else you could think of. The local Vale gangs made a profit too, they had their hands deep in a lot of the worker unions building the tunnels and cities. It was such a booming racket that a lot of the clans and families set up shop there. A new booming city full of construction workers, unions to jack, fresh businesses to set up shop, workers that wanted to drink or gamble or whore away their paychecks. It was a fresh new city that had a booming economy, and people like us saw that there was plenty of profit to be had.”

I washed down a bread roll with my wine. “These stories don’t usually have happy endings,” I said to her, “I’m guessing something happened to ruin it all.” 

“Damn right,” O-Ushi said to me, “the grimm happened, Mountain Glenn didn’t exactly have any of the natural barriers we take for granted here in Vale. Attacks became frequent, at first it was fine, grimm were to be expected, hell some government officials even paid people like us to help provide security.”

“Wait… the Vale Council paid for our kind of protection?” I asked, finding the idea that even back then the government would be getting into bed with a bunch of gangsters a little ridiculous. 

O-Ushi grinned at me amused, “don’t be surprised kid, huntsmen are few and expensive and we had the manpower at the time to help, they even gave us the guns to do it. The Vale council wanted this project to succeed so if that meant arming a bunch of gangs to fight grimm then so be it. The guys like us that did it were certainly happy, they got a bunch of cash and iron for the trouble, and the city was full of business, letting it fall to the grimm was not in anybody’s interest. But it wasn’t enough, the grimm attacks became worse and worse until the the fucking town was being overrun. It wasn’t enough, the Vale council deployed some huntsmen and the military but it was a token force at best. They were worried that the grimm would try attacking Vale so they held back most of their troops and their huntsmen while Mountain Glenn retreated underground and slowly tried evacuating. Eventually the grimm broke into the underground tunnels and the Vale Council elected to seal off the tunnels, everyone that hadn’t evacuated was either buried alive or slaughtered by the grimm.”

“Fuck that’s horrible,” I said trying to imagine being in a crowded dark tunnel with hoards of grimm.

She nodded before taking a big gulp of her wine. “Damn right it was, the Vale Council abandoned everyone that day.”

I chewed on that for a minute and wished that if Oobleck had ever talked about that in his class that I had listened. I had no doubt that he would have found it relevant that our government’s incompetence lost an entire city and then left its people to die. 

Thankfully our steaks arrived and the smell of the seared meat and twice baked potato cleared my mind for a minute as I cut into a perfectly cooked medium rare ribeye. “So what then? I’m guessing there’s more to this story.” I said after taking my first bite of my sinfully delicious steak.

“What was next was that Vale was flooded with refugees, the flood of immigrants was one thing but now they had a ton of people who had no jobs and had lost their homes,” she explained to me, “the Vale council was already embarrassed with the situation and had lost a mountain of lien trying to build their new city. They practically dumped them into the ghettos, the city officials sent some food and rations but it wasn’t enough. They wanted to forget about the refugees, they seemed to hope that over time they’d just fade away.”

I listened as I sliced into my bloody steak thinking about all of it. “I heard a little bit about that already, Little Mistral was particularly packed in that time, it’s when your Clan came to power.”

“It’s our Clan,” O-Ushi corrected me pointing her steak knife in my direction.

“Sorry,” I said, “I’m new to this, and can I call myself a member of the Clan as only an associate?”

“Sure you can,” she explained, “we’re a business, you might not be on the board of directors like I am, but you’re still an employee. You’re like an accountant, you might not sit in at our meetings but you’re certainly a part of our corporate machine.”

“Ok I get it, our Clan started out then, when Little Mistral and Vale were overrun with refugees. What happened then?” I asked, taking a sip of wine to wash down the bites of rib eye I had consumed.

“With an influx of refugees poor and abandoned and a substantial number of them in the business they did what they did best. They got to work. Thievery was at an all time high so they set up protection rackets, the workers unions were jacked, gambling started up, a fucking crime wave swept the county like never before. It was a golden age of business.”

“Who was behind it?” I asked her.

“Three people, “Papa” Hei Xiong,“Sharp” Sarah Rothstein, and “Lucky” Luca Torchwick. The three of them all started out in Vale and then tried to make something more of themselves in Mountain Glenn, but after losing all of their investments and having their own people live like rats they formed an alliance. Hei as you probably guessed ran a Mistrali Clan, our Clan the Kuroi Kuma. Pearl ran a faunus gang and Luca came from an old Vale family and he tried forming his own in Mountain Glenn. They called it the Triumvirate, the three of them set their sights on the competition and absorbed or pushed out the opposition.”

“How’d they do it?” I asked her.

“Brains, brawn, and trust,” O-Ushi answered me, “they worked together and they had their priorities straight while the competition was too busy fighting each other to do anything about it, in a couple of years the city was theirs and they divided it up. They poured their money into the neighborhood, they bribed public officials and bankers to stop redlining their parts of the city. They took care of their people! I was the good old days.”

“So why’d it end?” I asked her.

“Time passes,” she explained sadly grabbing the wine bottle to top off both our glasses, “things happen, “Lucky” Luca’s luck ran out and he was imprisoned for tax evasion.”

“Tax evasion?” I asked, finding the idea funny. 

“That’s one lesson to take away from this kid,” she said, “don’t you ever think you’re too good to fuck up, Luca Torchwick was smart and tough, no one was able to make any serious charges stick until they opened his books.”

“So Luca getting thrown behind bars was what ruined it?” I asked her.

“That was where the trouble started, Luca was the head of the Triumvirate, he had the most money and power and thus called a lot of the shots. He advised what he could from prison but his eldest son Tony was not as smart or wise as his old man. Then the Atlesians came to town and muscled in on the Fanus, cornering the drug trade they used to control.”

That was news to me, “they used to deal that shit before the Atlesians did?”

“That was the arrangement,” she confirmed, “most thought that they were animals anyways so let them sell their souls.”

“How progressive,” I deadpanned, unable to avoid voicing my displeasure in her words.

O-Ushi chuckled at my snark, “it’s history kid, you don’t have to like it, that’s not the point. Before Luca was behind bars the Triumvirate would have stood together against an enemy, but Tony Torchwick was a greedy little shit, he tried taking advantage of the play the Atlesians were making to let both sides fight and lose so he could take it all, it was a gamble that cost a lot, the Fanus gangs got shattered and the Atlesians were not interested in following rules or alliances, after that things snowballed. Tony stepped down and his younger brother Roman inherited the rest and things haven’t been the same since.”

“What about “Papa” Hei Xiong?” I asked, wanting to know how he turned out.

“He retired and left everything to Junior,” she explained, “Roman and him go way back, if it wasn’t for the two of them things could have fallen apart, because of them we still have strong ties to the Torchwick families.”

“But if that’s the case couldn’t Junior and Roman take on the Atlesians together?” I asked her.

She shook her head, “it’s not that simple Jaune,” she explained, “Junior and Torchwick might be thick as thieves but they built everything on a code of honor, they got cops and politicians in their pockets, they got judges on their payroll. But the Atlesians were fucking diffrent, when they went to war with the fanus everyone was a target, they didn’t give two fucks who was in the crossfire and it turned into a media circus. Judges and politicians can’t look the other way when there’s a bombing on the six o’clock news. and when cops get killed, even dirty cops, they come down hard. What’s more the Atlesians are in bed with a number of cartels in Vacuo, and they don’t want to see their buyers go out the window, they’d get involved if they had too.”

“But you said it yourself, if we let them push us around we already lost,” I said, remembering her words to Junior last night after I recalled the events of the shooting.

“I did say that,” she agreed, “and I meant every word, but I want to strike back quietly, I want to send a message not start a war. War is bad for business, plain and simple. And right now things are in the works, don’t concern yourself with that it’s above your pay grade. Did my story teach you anything?”

“I think so,” I explained, “don’t get too greedy, but more importantly don’t forget your friends and allies, they’re what made the Triumvirate work, and Tony Torchwick trying to push his ally out is what ruined everything.”

She nodded approvingly and picked up her wine glass. “Very good, I knew you were a smart kid. We’re a clan, and we only survive by sticking together. Without each other we’re nothing, without our friends we’re weak. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“I won’t” I assured her, meaning it.

Our steaks were gone by that point and O-Ushi poured the last bit of wine into both our glasses. The waiters took away our plates and we ordered dessert. “Can I ask you a question?” I said before I started on my tiramisu.

“That’s what today is all about,” she said to me.

“Last night,” I began reading her face to see if I was encroaching on a forbidden topic, “Junior said three years ago there was an agreement. What was it? What changed?”

“The Prince changed,” she said bitterly.

“Who is he?” I asked, feeling that it only created more questions.

“His real name is Nicky, we call him the “The Prince” because his old man is some hotshot in Atlas, apparently he despises that nickname. Three years ago this guy Andrey was calling the shots for the local Atlesians. He was someone you didn’t want to fuck with sure. But he had a good head on his shoulders and he didn’t lose his temper. For a little while it actually seemed that things were going to be copasetic with him around. Then the Prince popped him off and anyone that had a problem with it. The kid is a hot head, and ever since he came to town he’s been trying to start shit.”

“I see, so he’s the one we can thank for the 24k Dragons giving us trouble,” I observed.

“More or less,” O-Ushi agreed, “her certainly made a strong pitch to a lot of the street gangs about dealing his narcotics, the Dragons are just one that decided that profits meant more than loyalty.”

We finished our dessert and stepped out back into the streets of Vale. “What now?” I asked her, wondering if she had planned another long shopping spree after lunch.

“Now we get you working,” she told me with a grin, “you’re gonna be my personal bagman kid, so let’s get you doing your pickups.”


	7. Chapter 6: This is The Life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “ Once in the racket you're always in it.” ~ Al Capone

After that O-Ushi drove me back to her office and I got a good look at the kind of work I’d be doing. She pointed out which businesses I’d be collecting from and what’s more she taught me a code so that if I needed specifics I could call her up.

People in this line of work almost never openly discuss their business on the phone. Too many wiseguys had ended up behind bars because their scrolls were bugged, so if you did talk business on your scroll you used a code. She would sometimes call me and say something like, “go over to Asha’s Fish Market, pick me up a tuna steak,” that mean she wanted me to collect a thousand Lien from Asha’s Fish Market, it was simple but it was hard for any government agents listening to use that as evidence. Personally I’m pretty sure that no criminal investigator ever listened to a word I said over my scroll but a little paranoia is healthy in this line of work.

The rest of the day I borrowed a car and went around the neighborhood making collections. Mostly from businesses like restaurants, shops, strip clubs, and it was easy. I just walked in, came to the front and told the owner that O-Ushi says hi and I’d walk out with the cash. Some even threw in a free meal or drink or something just to show that relations were good.

I can honestly say that in my entire time working for O-Ushi I never once had to threaten a business owner or hurt them for money. As O-Ushi tried telling me the roots “Papa” Hei Xiong had set in Little Mistral ran deep. This was normal for the people here, and it ran even farther back than the clan, this was also the norm for a lot of these people back in Mistral where for many of them the line between legal and illegal is blurred. 

Honestly the hardest part about all of this was that I was carrying around a bunch of envelopes stuffed with cash. When you have that kind of dough on you it’s almost impossible to stay calm. I never kept it in the car and always made sure that it stayed on my person because if I lost it it was my ass. 

After a few days of going to businesses I started to get familiar with a lot of the other business partners O-Ushi had. Bookies, fences, con artists, her many many money launderers. These people were criminals but they weren’t a part of the Clan, this was more like outsourcing. Petty hoods that gave a cut of their earnings to operate on O-Ushi’s neighborhood. These guys could sometimes be tough customers but for the most part they also coughed up the cash easy. For the most part these were the guys that tried to get out of paying with simple excuses, but as O-Ushi had taught me to say, “fuck you, pay me!”

And usually they did. When they didn’t pay me I usually made them agree to pay me next week with interest, and I usually came back with Toshi or other fellow associates so they knew that things could get ugly. It never failed, they all knew that raising their hands to us would mean that the rest of the Clan would send them to the doctor and they’d never be able to work safely in Little Mistral again, bringing backup was a good way to remind them of that.

I was making more money doing this than I was driving cabs, but I wasn’t exactly rolling in cash either. I was certainly bringing in more than an average guy working forty hours a week in a dead end job but it wasn’t anything impressive. Working for the Clan certainly paid but if anyone wanted to make real money they had to earn it for the clan.

About a week into my job working as a bagman Toshi approached me at a bar and gave me an offer to buy into a racket he was starting. Bootleg dvds, he knew some guys who had all the stuff lined up and I accepted giving him the money so they could set up an operation in the back of a cafe.

We had to clear it with both Tonen and O-Ushi. Whenever you want to start a business in the Clan be it legal or illegal you have to clear it with the bosses. And since Tonen was Toshi’s boss and O-Ushi was mine the two of them needed to work out some details. The main thing that O-Ushi and Tonen did as underbosses was ensure that nobody stepped on each other’s toes doing business, doing anything without their blessing was a way to wind up in trouble and I wasn’t in any rush to get myself in trouble with these people.

They saw no problem with our mutual business venture and soon enough Toshi and I were getting a van full of the supplies me needed. We drove down to the docks where a group of Vale wiseguys were offloading some stolen goods. Toshi even introduced me to a few of them, they were Roman’s boys who ran a racket of offloading smuggled and stolen goods and it seemed that they had just what we needed. We got stacks of desktops and blank dvds that they had been wanting to offload.

Within another week we had gotten a couple of tech savvy kids working in the back of the cafe pirating movies that we sold to a lot of local shops and street vendors. Over time we expanded into music and video games too, I was unofficially a partner in a business. And now and then I occasionally gave out small loans to the businesses I collected from.

Hana for example had a couple of her washing machines break down that I paid to replace getting a sizable cut for awhile as she paid me back. A lot of the Clan members that had been in the life longer owned businesses like bars or clubs but I was a long way from having that much lien. 

Most of my business ventures were small and illegal and I was usually only an investor back then. I bought into this little clothing store across the street from Hana’s that made counterfeit designer clothes and handbags, these street dealers that sold fake jewelry to tourists coming to Little Mistral. Back then I wasn’t completely comfortable with all of this, I wasn’t exactly a fan of ripping people off but I was supposed to get in deep with the Clan. And that meant getting deep into their business. Pirating movies and music was at least palpable. I’m not a saint, even I illegally downloaded some of Weiss Schnee’s albums back in the day. It wasn’t like she needed the ten extra lien, right?

Living in that little apartment above Hana’s laundromat and being regularly treated to her home cooking my expenses were thankfully low so I had a fair amount of cash to throw around. And I threw it back into the neighborhood, investing in whatever I could and getting my cut back with interest.

But my work wasn’t just handing money with occasional leg work. 

Two weeks after O-Ushi treated me to that shopping spree I got a call. I had just picked up a few of my tailored suits from Marcello and was enjoying some reheated stir fry when my scroll buzzed on the counter.

Come over to Junior’s Club, wear something casual. 

I read the text and wondered what she could want suddenly. Since it was the club I decided that casual should be black pants, a black button up and an ivy cap and black blazer. I called a cab and headed right over to the club.

Walking in it seemed like an average night in Junior’s club. The music had a nice rhythmic beat and people were moving to it on the dance floor. I didn’t see O-Ushi so I just texted her that I was gonna be at the bar. 

Approaching the bar I caught sight of pink and brown hair. “Hey Neo.” I greeted moving to see her drinking what looked like a White Atlesian. I asked the bartender for a gin and tonic. 

She turned her exotically colored eyes in my direction and nodded at me in greeting giving me a friendly smile. 

“What brings you here tonight?” I asked her casually, trying to make conversation while I waited for O-Ushi to get back to me and tell me whatever she wanted.

She picked her scroll up off the bar and typed out her response. Roman is having a sit down with Junior, the text read.

I nodded and took a sip of my gin and tonic wondering if maybe the meeting perhaps had something to do with why O-Ushi had called me. 

We sat together in silence together for a long moment sipping our drinks. I wanted to think of something to say to her, some kind of ice breaker so I could actually have a real conversation with her, but I had nothing.

Getting familiar with one of Roman’s better thieves seemed to be a good way to learn about the dust heists. At least that’s what I consciously had been telling myself seeing her drinking at the bar and trying to spark up a conversation. The truth was I just wanted to talk to her, she was interesting, exotic, and so far every time I had seen her she demanded my attention with her mere presence. 

Thankfully Neo was the one that decided to break the ice. She set her scroll down in front of me and I read the words she had typed. 

I heard you saved your boss's life.

I chuckled nervously reading that. “Wow! Word gets around huh?” I said supposing that I shouldn’t be surprised that in this life where so much business is handled from word of mouth that had reached its way into the Vale mob. “It was nothing, I just turned around and saw her on the ground and did the first thing I could think of,” I explained, “it’s not a big deal, people have been exaggerating, I didn’t even fire my gun.”

Saving a Mistrali’s life is always a big deal. She typed to me.

“Oh believe me I know,” I said to her scratching the back of my head, “it started with a shopping spree of suits and it’s still going on, she gave me a bottle of the same single malt whiskey Junior drinks just yesterday,” I explained to her, “I barely have enough room in my apartment for all these gifts.” That was certainly true, I had to get a coat rack from Hana because all my suits wouldn’t fit in my mesely closet. 

Neo smiled and shook a little in what I was sure was the most adorable but silent laight I had ever seen.

“So if you’re here with Roman, why are you down here drinking a White Atleasian?” I asked her, feeling a little more comfortable now that she had broken the silence so to speak. I watched as her fingers danced across the screen of her scroll.

He told me to have a drink and enjoy myself. So here I am.

“Why bring you if he’s not gonna keep you around?” I asked her, realizing after I said it I was probably getting a little nosy. Mobsters don’t like nosey. “Sorry,” I stammered nervously, “I’m sure you can tell I’m all new to this. I’m still learning the life, ya know?”

She considered me for a long moment before her fingers danced across the screen again.

It’s a sign of respect. Roman has me for protection but trusts Junior enough not to keep me by his side all the time.

I nodded. Respect, it meant a lot to these people. To these people not showing respect was always tantamount to a threat. 

“Well, are you?” I asked her, “enjoying yourself I mean?”

Her petite shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. 

“Oh, sorry,” I said, a little disappointed that she didn’t seem to be particularly enjoying what little conversation we were having. Then again it’s not like I was offering her anything more than simple small talk.

Why are you here alone? Business? Or Pleasure? She typed out on her scroll again breaking the silence between us.

“Business,” I explained to her, laughing a little nervously at the boldness of her question, “boss told me to come here and dress casually,” I explained checking my scroll to see if O-Ushi had gotten back to me. She hadn’t.

She shrugged again and placed her elbow on the bar resting her head in her hand before taking another sip of her White Atlesian. 

I nursed my drink thinking about something we could at the very least idly talk about and keep her somewhat distracted. I didn’t really know much about her and I wasn’t in a position to ask her too many questions. 

“Did you make a bundle off that jewelry job?” I asked her, figuring that was at least something we shared.

She smirked and looked back at me before nodding and typing out her answer.

A generous haul, if I do say so myself.

I smirked watching as she continued to type on her scroll.

Did you really keep the ring? 

“Yeah,” I told her, reaching into my pocket and feeling the little platinum band. It had become something like a good luck charm for me. 

Why?

I shrugged, not willing to admit that I was carrying it around as a charm. “It’s too hot to pawn off,” I said remembering what O-Ushi had told me. “How well do you know the twins?” I asked her, trying to change the subject. 

Neo raised an eyebrow at me.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I said raising my hand dismissively, “How did you meet the two of them?” I asked her, trying to clarify that I wasn’t trying to get any dirty details from her about the three of them.

We met on a job. Some of Junior’s guys stole something from Roman. I worked to get it back while the twins were sent in to teach them a lesson. We stumbled into each other by accident. 

I winced. From everything I had heard about Junior and Roman’s relationship I had no doubt that the twins were ordered to show no mercy. “How long ago was this?” I idly asked her.

Four, maybe five years. I can’t honestly remember.

That was a surprise to me. She was probably a similar age to me, maybe even a little younger. Imagining someone so young going on a job like that was difficult. Even the twins couldn’t be more than eighteen, maybe nineteen years old. I was just now getting into the life and doing that kind of work made me nauseous to think about. But apparently they had been doing dirty work for a very long time.

“How long have you been in the life?” I asked her.

I was born into the life. 

Reading the message on her scroll I tried to imagine what that could have possibly been like. How is someone born into this lifestyle? I could understand having a family member that’s in the mob, but being born into it? Was she robbing kids of their lunch money? I figured I didn’t want the answer to that.

“Hey Jaune!” 

I heard my name shouted across the hall and turned in my stool to see O-Ushi with the twins and a half dozen other wiseguys.

“Get over here kid! We got work to do!” O-Ushi ordered me. 

I looked over at Neo and tipped by cap to her, “duty calls, see you around,” I said leaving my unfinished drink on the bar and hopping off my stool. Neo gave me a little wave and downed the rest of her drink to leave as well. I looked across the club to see Roman Torchwick walking towards the exit talking to Junior, it seemed their private meeting was finished.

“What’s going on?” I asked O-Ushi falling into step beside her as she strutted out of the club.

O-Ushi grinned at me, “We’re hitting them back,” she said to me.

“What!?” 

“Junior gave the word and now we’re going to teach those punks in the 24k Dragons a lesson,” she explained to me.

I tried to wonder what exactly that meant but I was sure that I was going to be getting my hands dirty tonight. I looked over at the twins. I looked over at Melanie and Miltia following behind. “You’re a part of this?” I asked them.

“We owed O-Ushi a favor, remember?” Miltia said to me.

“Yeah, it was for kidnapping you that one night,” Melanie finished before whipping around and jabbing a finger into my chest like the tip of a blade and glaring right into my eyes. 

My eyes widened at her and I froze from her gaze.

“You still haven’t called either of us!” Melanie said to me accusingly.

“I… uh… sorry,” I stammered, “I’ve been busy.”

“Whatever,” Melanie said haughtily, rolling her eyes at me. 

“She’s just teasing you,” Miltia explained, giggling at the exchange.

“Miltia!” Melanie protested to her, “it’s no fun if you tell him! It’s better to let him think I’m mad.” 

I laughed nervously at their shenanigans unable to completely shake away the fact that we were on our way to start trouble with the 24k Dragons. “Well how about I try making it up to the both of you later?” I suggested trying to distract myself and ease my tensions. “We can get dinner of something.”

“Deal,” the two of them said in unison to me.

“We’ll be holding you two that,” Melanie said, threateningly.

We stepped out into the night air and walked around the corner where O-Ushi and a number of others were parked. She opened the trunk of her car and reached in pulling out a short barreled shotgun and handing it to one of her boys along with a box of shells. Next she handed me a wooden baseball bat and told me to climb into the backseat.

I did just that. I rested the club between my knees as I got into the back seat. Mel and Mil got in too so I settled into the center between them watching the guy sitting in the front seat load shells into a shotgun. 

I knew that sooner or later I was probably going to have to get my hands dirty. It was an inevitability I understood, Ozpin had told me that I needed to do what I had to to earn the trust of these people. But as O-Ushi got in the car and put it into gear I felt sick.

I listened to every shell being slid into the tube of that shotgun and imagined a body dead in the streets.


	8. Chapter 7: Dirty Deeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "A little violence never hurt anyone." ~ Benjamin Ruggiero

"So uh… where are we going exactly?" I asked O-Ushi as the guy riding up front pumped the shotgun with a loud clack-clack chambering a shell.

"The Dragons have a chop shop a couple blocks outside our neighborhood," she explained to me taking a turn, "Junior has given me the go ahead to smash the place up, everyone going is packing aura, but if you see any Atlesians don't touch them, and don't kill anybody kid, Junior doesn't want any bodies."

"No bodies?" I asked her looking at the guy in front with the shotgun resting between his legs.

The man with the shotgun looked back as we stopped at a light and cracked a grin in my direction. "Relax kid, it's just rocksalt," the he told me with a wink, easing my worries, "it packs a punch but it won't kill anybody, just make them hurt like hell."

"Jaune if I wanted you to make corpses then I would have handed everybody some iron instead of clubs." O-Ushi told me.

"Yeah," Melanie cheerfully agreed, "these punks aren't even worth real bullets."

I nodded feeling most of my apprehensions dissolve knowing that I was going to be sending those thugs to the hospital instead of the morgue. "And what if their guns aren't loaded with rock salt?" I asked knowing full well that the 24k Dragons might not share Junior's restraint.

"Like, that's why everyone coming is packing aura," Miltia chimed in, "they're gonna have a hard time taking down us with just some pea shooters."

"Exactly," O-Ushi said, "most of the 24k Dragons don't have aura, I can only think of a handful I knew who did back when they worked for Junior, this should be easy for the ten of us."

"Yeah," Melanie said, cracking her knuckles for emphasis, "but if any of them want to put up a real fight Mil and I got dibs."

I remained quiet for the rest of the drive smoking a cigarette. Tonight I was going to get my hands dirty but not bloody, I could live with that. I'd already beaten up a fair number of the 24k Dragons so doing it again was going to be nothing new for me.

O-Ushi stopped the car and I looked out the window as the doors opened and Mel and Mil shuffled out ready to roll. The shop didn't look like much to me but I saw that indeed there were already some 24k Dragons outside smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.

They had already taken notice of our vehicles stopping and the ten of us getting out with weapons in hand. The guy with the shotgun raised it and fired, deafening me for a second as he struck one of the dragons down with a blast of rock salt.

I watched as the force of the impact seemed to punch him right in the chest. The rock salt shattered the beer bottle he was holding and spilled it all over him and his jacket. He pumped the shotgun and shot down another one trying to scramble inside. It struck him right in the back and fell through the door.

O-Ushi reached into her jacket and pulled both of her long barreled revolvers out. I didn't think those were non lethal weapons but I watched as she flipped the weapons around and gripped them by the barrel. I watched as the twin magnums morphed like so many weapons I had seen at Beacon forming into a pair of hammers. I watched as she moved forward stepping over the one guy that had gotten a back full of rock salt.

One guy tried to jump her at the threshold but I watched as she shattered his arm and knocked some of his teeth out. Mel and Mil were the next in the door and I followed in. The guy with the shotgun loaded a couple more shells in the tube as the rest of the boys moved around back or shattered the windows.

When I finally shuffled into the place a full on melee was already happening inside. I watched as Mel and Mil slashed and kicked everyone who even dared get in their way. I watched as Melanie brought her bladed heel down one guy giving him a slash on his shoulder and sending him to the floor bleeding and in pain. I stared at Mil as she slashed up one punk's face like it was a scratching post.

Those that weren't smacking the shit out of the thugs were smashing up the shop. I watched as a bar at the end of the room had it's bottles shattered with a blast of rock salt. Others broke chairs over the guys or knocked over tables.

One guy charged me with a bar stool, I dodged the swing and slammed my bat into his gut making him double over. Another attacked me with a knife and I broke his nose with a simple strike. These punks should have just ran away and saved themselves a trip to a doctor, but that wasn't the case. It was fucking chaos as they tried to fight back. Some had guns, little cheap .22 or .25 caliber pieces that hardly did anything to our auras and most had too much sense to fire into the chaos where a stray bullet could have hit one of their buddies who didn't have auras to protect themselves. One guy who I kneecapped with my bat actually took a shot that ricocheted off my aura to strike him in the arm. The shooter looked stunned before Melanie knocked him to the floor with a graceful kick.

It was a bloody mess. I fell into the craziness of the melee, I broke bones and faces, I smashed up just about anything that looked intact when I wasn't smashing the gang members. It was as horrifying as it was exhilarating. It was a rush, I was pumped full of adrenaline as I fought.

Just as it looked like we had devastated the lot of them, I heard the loud hum of a bike outside so I moved to the door throwing it open to see one guy with a 24k Dragons jacket pulling up on a motorcycle. He looked right at me and pulled off his helmet revealing a head of black hair tipped with gold dye.

"I'm going to give you one chance to get the fuck out of here with all your teeth!" I shouted pointing my bat right at him. Now I was still more than a little high on adrenaline from fighting a bunch of the punks inside and I was feeling pretty confident with myself.

"You should understand why I can't leave without a fight," the guy said, standing up from his bike and approaching me. His composure was loose, calm, he didn't hold himself like someone ready for a fight. I had tried to give him a chance to walk away with no damage and if anyone saw me give him another chance I knew that I'd look like a chump to O-Ushi and the rest of the guys here.

I raised the bat and charged right at him like an idiot. He raised up his motorcycle helmet and deflected my swing before hitting me in the face with it. My aura deflected it easily enough but I was so surprised that this guy had actually stopped my attack and hit me that I just blinked. I was completely unprepared as he struck his open palm right into my sternum. The blow sent me flying straight back and crashing through the door.

My aura had held but the wind had gotten knocked right out of me. I tried to breathe as I lay on the dirty floor of the shop realizing that I'd been hit with some kind of semblance. O-Ushi and the twins looked down at me wheezing. Thankfully Miltia offered me a hand up that I graciously accepted, getting back on my feet while the other guy stepped in through the door with everyone's eyes on him.

He looked down at one of his fellow gang members and helped him to his feet. "Get everyone out of here!" He ordered his guy and he did just that gathering the Dragons that were still around and hurt and seeing them out the door. O-Ushi and the rest didn't do a thing to stop them. He looked right to O-Ushi glaring at her, "you made your point," he said, "I suggest you leave before anyone else gets hurt."

I watched as O-Ushi laughed at him, "You got balls to tell me to leave Kenzo!"

"I'm not telling you," Kenzo said calmly flexing his fingers that rested calmly at his side, "but this is our place, I cannot let you stay so if you leave now there will be no more trouble."

"Trouble!?" O-Ushi spat, "That's funny considering the trouble you've been giving me and my people, if you didn't want trouble then you shouldn't have tried wrecking my cabs, or selling your fucking poison on my streets!"

Kenzo's face fell in what looked like disgust, shame even. "That wasn't my call," he said regretfully, clenching his fists.

O-Ushi shrugged, "then take off that jacket," she said to him, "leave the 24k Dragons and you won't have to do that kind of shit."

Kenzo released a sigh, "I cannot," he said looking her dead in the eye, "I know you understand."

"And I know you understand why I gotta do what I gotta do!" O-Ushi said regretfully.

The guy with the shotgun raised and fired. The rock salt hit him and he stepped back from the force of the blow but otherwise his aura had shielded him. He leapt forward right past O-Ushi and struck the guy with the shotgun with an open palm. The force of the blow sent him flying just as it had me, sending him tumbling over the bar at the end of the room.

Mel and Mil jumped into the action delivering swift kicks and swipes with their bladed heels and claws. I watched as Kenzo moved back and dodged their attacks gracefully. Miltia thrust her claws right at him only for him to slap her wrist away with a strike, his semblance activated increasing the force of the blow, it sent Miltai spinning away and crashing into the wall. Melanie spun a kick only for him to block her with his forearm and strike her right in her stomach sending her flying out one of the already broken windows.

Kenzo rocketed away from his position, using his semblance to boost himself as he moved to another one of the guys with a chain. He kicked out his leg and sent him down with a second kick. His aura disintegrated into light as he moved right to the next guy sending up crashing into the ceiling with an uppercut. Another tried to club him in the back of the head only to end up on the floor when his elbow shot back and struck him.

O-Ushi gave a bone chilling roar and charged him and swung her hammers right at him. He dodged the first blow and deflected the second only for her to send a knee up in her sternum and crack one of her hammers across his face. I watched as his aura shielded him from the strike and he tried to catch the second blow only for the first hammer to come right up and smack him beneath his chin.

Kenzo stumbled back from the hit, right at me. Seeing an opportunity I stepped forward and swung my bat right at him. The wooden club bounced off his aura and he turned to face me as I raised the bat for a second swing. His hand came up and intercepted the club activating his semblance as I brought the bat down with all my might.

The bat hit and shattered into a thousand splinters, and as I wondered dumbly what to do next Kenzo was already acting. He delivered another blow right to my chest and I slammed against the concrete wall. Stars danced in my eyes as I watched O-Ushi push her offensive throwing one of her hammers right at him after he hit me. She rushed right at him and brought her other hammer down on him.

I watched as the yellow light of his aura shatter and glitter away as gold dust. He rolled on the ground a bit and O-Ushi grabbed the other hammer on the ground. "Get the fuck out of here Kenzo!" She told him with a low dangerous voice, "I'm letting you off easy tonight so I suggest you accept my mercy!" She warned him. "You can either go visit your boys in the hospital, or you can join them!"

Kenzo spat out a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "Very well," he said standing up and moving for the door calm as ever. When he reached the door he found Melanie standing in the doorway glaring at him.

"Let him go!" O-Ushi ordered her.

"He hit me!" Melanie growled.

"I know," O-Ushi said, "but it's my show tonight, let him go!"

"Whatever," Melanie said, stepping aside for him to pass but glaring daggers at him as he stepped by to get onto his motorcycle.

We waited until we heard his motorcycle engine start up and fade away down the street. "Wreck the place up!" O-Ushi ordered everyone, morphing one of her hammers back into a revolver and shooting out one of the lights with an ear splitting crack.

I watched as everyone went about breaking chairs and tables and anything else they could in that front office that the 24k Dragons seemed to have been using more as a bar than anything. I picked up a lead pipe to replace my bat and shattered the bathroom up leaving it strewn with water and broken porcelain .

After we had finished busting up the rest of their office area we moved back into the garage where they kept all the cars and their parts. I watched as the boys descended on the vehicles, hitting anything and everything. One even shattered a window and proceeded to pour gas into the interior and set it alight.

The point was clear, it wasn't just about beating up a bunch of punks, this was about ruining their business the same way they had been trying to ruin O-Ushi's. A handful of guys getting beat up was normal for the gang. But financial wounds are the ones that hurt them more. I was never a big car guy I'll admit, but watching some of these nice rides get smashed and burned up beyond repair was a little heart breaking.

I looked at one of the nicer cars that hadn't been touched yet. It was a two seat sleek white luxury sport trimmed with gold. It kind of reminded me of the armor I had been wearing back at Beacon and I took a long appreciative look at it before raising my lead pipe to wreck the shit out of it.

Before I could bring the pipe down O-Ushi caught the club in her strong hands and wrenched it away from me. "What the fuck are you doing kid!?" she asked me seriously.

"I uh… I was just," I stammered dumbly with confusion.

"Why the hell are you trying to smash up your car!?" She asked grinning widely at me.

I blinked at her, processing her words. "My car?" I asked her for clarification to see that I hadn't misheard her.

"Yeah your car," she said pulling a set of keys and tossing them to me, "take good care of it, don't smash it up, it's nice."

I looked back at the sleek vehicle and tried to imagine it as mine. I was living in a shitty studio apartment above a laundromat and I was going to be driving this around? It seemed surreal to even think about driving a set of wheels like this but here it was and I had to do was take it.

I hit the button on the fob to open the doors and saw that they lifted straight up, I thought it was so cool. I got into the driver's seat and took a moment to appreciate the fine leather seats. Say what you will about the 24k Dragons but they did a fine job assembling this car, I don't know how they managed to find it and properly chop it to be sold but it was now somehow all mine. I was thrilled.

The passenger side door opened and I looked over to see Miltia and Melanie sticking their heads in to inspect the lush interior. Melanie gave a low whistle of appreciation. "Nice! Like you certainly got the best one Jaune," she complimented to me. I looked past them to see that indeed not all the cars were being completely ruined as O-Ushi's boys had gotten a hold of the keys and were laying claim to the rest of the wheels while the others were piles of dented metal and glass. Others still had their interiors burning from the inside stinking up the whole place with acrid smoke.

"Thanks," I said touching the steering wheel appreciatively as I tried to imagine myself cruising around the neighborhood in this car and making my collections. I certainly would be turning more than a few heads sitting behind the wheel of this ride.

"Well what are you waiting for Jaune?" Miltia said, "start her up!"

"Yeah," Melanie said, gracefully slipping into the passenger seat, "stick it in and listen to her purr!"

"Melanie!" Miltia chided her twin sister.

"What?" Melanie said fainting innocence, "I'm just agreeing with you Miltia, he should start her up."

My face was hot with embarrassment so I just stayed quiet and inserted the key. I listened to the loud engine start up and idle in a loud impressive rumble. I didn't know what kind of horsepower was under the hood of this thing but I was certain it was a lot more than I was ever going to truly need. It was rare for me to even go past thirty five on my average day.

"See?" Melanie chimed, batting her eyelashes, "isn't that a lovely sound."

"Yeah," I said, forgetting my embarrassment as I listened to the engine rumble.

"So let's go," Miltia said sliding herself gracefully into the passenger seat beside her sister and closing the door.

"Where to?" I asked, realizing just how petite they both were occupying a single seat like that, even if it did violate a number of vehicle safety laws.

"Sakura's Sushi," Miltia told me.

"O-Ushi is getting us all dinner," Melanie explained, her shoulder against mine in the confines of the vehicle.

"And then we're going clubbing," Miltia continued on.

"O-Ushi is taking us clubbing?" I asked them.

"No you're taking us clubbing," Melanie said to me leaning against me over the center console.

"What?" I asked them stupidly.

"You said you'd make it up to us later," Miltia reminded me.

"And like, now it's later Jaune," Melanie explained with a teasing grin.

I actually couldn't help but smile and nod in agreement. It wasn't like I had any actual plans tonight before O-Ushi called me over to Junior's club. "Alright, we'll go clubbing," I agreed with them putting my new car into gear and tapping gently on the gas to make it go. The car accelerated like nothing I had ever driven before and I was a little awkward taking onto the road and following O-Ushi and the rest of her people out. The twins giggled at my expense.

Thankfully I managed to adapt to the car and didn't hit anything as I drove to Sakura's Sushi. O-Ushi ordered a back room and every roll on the menu along with several bottles of hot saké. Melanie kept suggesting that we should all try nyotaimori, sushi that was served on the bodies of naked women. She told me that ancient Mistrali samurai used to do it to celebrate victories. Thankfully Sakura's didn't have that kind of option so we ate off of normal dishes.

Dinner conversation mainly consisted of reliving the fight and laughing about how we all kicked the shit out of the 24k Dragons. I got a few good natured ribs for having been thrown through the door by Kenzo but also praised for getting a solid if futile swing on the guy.

I wanted to know more about Kenzo. So far he seemed different than the rest of the 24k Dragons I had seen so far. For one he wasn't a pushover like the others, he had aura and skills I would have expected from a huntsmen. But more than that he genuinely seemed to regret fighting O-Ushi. The 24k Dragons used to be in the Clan's pocket before I arrived and I could tell there was some history between O-Ushi and him.

I also spent the dinner getting acquainted with O-Ushi's guys. The guy that had been blasting the 24k Dragons with rock salt was named Kaiu, he gave me his card for his indoor range and told me that if I never needed firepower to give him a call. I reluctantly agreed to take him up on the offer if I ever needed to.

Melanie managed to brag that Miltia and her were going clubbing after dinner with me and somehow the situation got out of hand. Before we managed to eat up the sushi and drink all the sake they all invited themselves to go to this club called Bonsai and they even called for a limo to take us all. I suppose that was for the best as I was already a little buzzed from the sake so driving my new car seemed out of the question. O-Ushi assured me that she'd send someone to park it behind my apartment and I handed over the keys.

By the time we finished eating and stepped outside that limousine was already waiting for us. O-Ushi said goodnight and was off to take care of some other business. I settled into a seat next to the twins and we were off still sharing war stories and occasionally one of O-Ushi's boys gave me an offer to invest in one of their more illicit businesses.

I certainly promised that I'd consider some of their offers and even told them about my own joint business with Toshi pirating dvds. One guy even let us in on a ball game he had apparently rigged and gave us the rundown on who to bet on. I actually made a decent chunk of change the next week taking his advice.

We arrived at the club filled with flashing green lights and rhythmic techno music. We all got a couple of drinks at the bar together, I was starting to gain a pallet for alcohol by that point and we talked things up for a while as I enjoyed a bloody mary.

We talked and joked some more over drinks but the minute I had finished my bloody mary Melanie and Miltia were dragging me to the dance floor by both arms. "Come on!" Melanie said, "we came here to dance not to talk it up with the guys."

"Yeah," Miltia agreed, "besides they probably don't even know how to dance."

The night became a blur once we took to the dance floor. Mel and Mil were just as handsy and provocative as they were the last time we danced together. I was still awkward and embarrassed but the buzz of the alcohol probably helped loosen me. I moved with the flow of the music and the two of them as they touched me, grinded themselves on me. It wasn't like the three of us were even standing out here on the dance floor. Compared to other dancers that kissing or grinding or being generally lewd to one another I felt the three of us were being rather timid. Stay at a club late enough and things can certainly get a little debatcherous.

But I was losing myself dancing between the two of them. Growing up with my sisters and taking dance lessons I had come to really enjoy it. But there had been few chances in my life to enjoy it like this. Dancing with girls that weren't my sisters and who were clearly intent on making the best of the night was a new experience, and with my nerves dulled from drink I was certainly enjoying every minute of it, of moving with them, of having them put their hands on me in a less than innocent manner. And with my inhibitions lowered I certainly made more than a few bold touches of my own.

We would stop dancing here and there to have another drink or two and catch up with Kaiu or another one of O-Ushi's boys before we got back to the dance floor to repeat the process all over again. Some of the guys peeled off early, they either wanted to go home or had sudden business they needed attending to.

It was about three in the morning when the club was starting to die down. Few dancers remained going home tired or to enjoy other nightly pleasures and the rest of us decided that we had had our fill as well. We got back out to the limo and the guys gave the driver their addresses so he could take them home. All the while they mixed drinks in the limo's mini bar.

I settled in my seat a sobering energy drink and watched the city lights through the window talking it up with the guys as they went home one by one until naturally it was just me and the twins together heading through town towards their apartment.

"Jaune..." Miltia said, pulling my attention away from the city passing by and to the two of them sitting next to me.

"Yeah?" I asked, taking another sip of my energy drink.

"There's no need to take the limo back to your place alone," Mil told me looking into my eyes.

Melanie smiled at me, "yeah like, you should come with us to our place," she continued on touching my thigh and smirking sensually, "there's no reason for the party to end so soon."

I was a huge idiot not to have seen this coming, especially after how I had been dancing with the two of them earlier. But when my brain managed to put two and two together through the haze of alcohol I blushed like the innocent virgin I was.

"I uh… I don't know," I stammered lamely, "it's been a long night."

"A tough guy like you is tired already?" Miltia pouted cutely at me.

Melanie shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. "You're a cruel man Jaune Arc," she teased me, "getting us all riled up on the dance floor only to leave us to go home all hot and bothered."

"I uh… I didn't mean to," I explained defensively, "Thanks for the offer, I just… uh… you both took me by surprise… I've never really done anything like this before."

"Wait..." Mil said, her gaze on me softening, "Jaune… are you a-."

"Yeah," I said, cutting her off before she could say virgin and embarrass me anymore.

"Oh!" Melanie said, eyebrows raising with surprise. But her surprise quickly hardened into a lustful glare and a sinful grin. "All the more reason to say yes," she said running a finger down my chest and turning her head towards Miltia, "we could teach him a thing or two Miltia."

"I think you're right Melanie," Miltia said touching my face, "what do you say Jaune, you could lose that troublesome v-card tonight."

I was stunned, like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. I was nervous, scared even to think about what could possibly happen next. But I was also excited, I had certainly felt my body's opinion on the matter while we all danced. The way they had grinded against a certain stiff part of my anatomy had made me shudder more than once that evening. I was never really a lady's man but suddenly I found myself sitting between these two girls offering me a night of lustful delights.

I thought back to those two words I said to myself when the twins first asked me to accompany them to Junior's club.

Fuck it.

"Alright," I muttered to them nodding as I approved their intentions for me. Melanie purred with satisfaction and leaned in and kissed me. Her lips tasted like tequila and I surrendered myself to the taste of them. I kissed her back letting instinct guide me on this new road. I ran my fingers through her long silky black hair, as my tongue danced with hers. I felt her breasts press against me as she leaned in against me and deepened the kiss.

I felt her hands move down and took hold of my belt to release the buckle, or maybe it was Miltia's hands. My heart raced as I felt their fingers work, the soft clink of metal as it was freed and they opened the fly of my pants. I could hardly believe that this was actually happening.

I moaned into the kiss as I felt confident hands pull me free and stroke me gently. The kiss broke between Mel and I. I looked over and saw Mil gazing at me hungrily with her emerald green eyes as she ran her hand gently up and down my length. I could only smile at her in approval.

She leaned in and kissed me, harder and fiercer than I expected from her. The spiced rum she had been drinking was still on her lips and for a second time I got lost in the kiss feeling her hand work my tool as Melanie's hot mouth came down on it, sending my night into a whirlwind of ecstasy.


	9. Manners Maketh Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “ My friends call me Ben, strangers call me Mr. Siegel and those I don't like call me Bugsy, but not to my face." ~ Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel

I woke up late the next morning naked and cuddled next to the twins. I was pleasantly sore from the exertion of last night and I had the pleasant flavor of one of them lingering on my lips. Full disclosure, I didn't feel like a big stud like you might think. The first thing I thought as I opened my eyes and recalled everything that had transpired was wonder; How did I end up like this?

Don't get me wrong, I had a ton of fun. Melanie and Miltia were patient with me being an awkward virgin through the whole experience, they were kind and they pulled out this adventurous side of me that enjoyed every minute of it. I'm glad I passed that particular milestone with them, it was memorable and while I certainly wasn't a pro in the sack they were nothing but encouraging and made it a night I'll never forget. I won't kiss and tell, but I felt like one hell of a big shot when we finally fell asleep in their bed. It was an amazing time.

But lying in their bed with Melanie's head upon my shoulder and Miltia's arm around me I could only really think about what direction my life was taking. I felt lost where I was. It wasn't so long ago that I was in Beacon trying to become a huntsmen, I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, and I certainly never went back to a girl's apartment. The Jaune I had been became someone I turned into once a week for ten to twenty minutes as I reported to Ozpin. I was thinking about my short life like Beacon less and less. I thought less and less about my team and my friends with every passing day. I had new friends, I had a new life, and the scary part was that I was liking it. I was really starting to enjoy this business.

I walked down the street of Little Mistral with envelopes of cash stuffed in my jacket and was starting to spend almost every night in a bar or a nightclub where I never needed to wait in line or get the bartender's attention for a drink. I liked hanging out with Toshi and I was even starting to feel like a part of the neighborhood. And that scared me. I was making friends I was planning on betraying, and right now I was lying in bed next to two beautiful girls I might one day turn on. I cannot begin to explain the guilt I was starting to feel over that.

I hadn't thought any of that when it happened. I was caught up in the night and in my own lust. Like so many nights hanging out and doing Clan business I had completely forgotten that my job here was to report their criminal actions and get closer to the dust robberies. I was somewhat comforted that I knew Melanie and Miltia didn't harbor any kind of romantic feeling towards me. This was just a bit of fun for them, they had other friends male and female that they fooled around in bed with. I wasn't anything special. It was just sex. But that only helped to dull my feelings of guilt.

I had always imagined criminals as monsters. Just evil people that Spruce Willis shot up in his movies and got the leading girl without a second thought to blowing them away. But my experience was nothing like that. The business was dirty sure, but Junior's clan was as much a part of this neighborhood as the noodle stands and the nightclubs. They weren't some kind of invaders that came here and strong armed everyone. In Little Mistral Junior was the law. The Clan was a product of Mountain Glenn and the Kingdom's failure. Was I just going to help Ozpin sweep up a side effect of their failure to protect their own people?

Miltia stirred and stretched on the bed next to me and Melanie gave a pleasant groan. "Hey you awake big guy?" She asked me with a cute little yawn while she rubbed the sand from her eyes.

"I'm great," I told Melanie, touching her comfortingly and sitting up in the bed I stared at the white tiger tattooed on the small of her back. Miltia had a matching tattoo, only her tiger was orange. The tattoos marked them both as Clan enforcers. "I'm just a little worn from last night."

She grinned at that and reached over to her nightstand for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She handed me a smoke and lit her own before tossing the pack to her sister. Miltia leaned close and lit my smoke off the cherry of her own cigarette. I took that first sweet drag and tried to bury my awkwardness as I wondered what exactly was going to happen next.

I just sat there for a moment smoking between the two of them rethinking the erotic details of last night and getting my bearings. "Who's hungry?" I asked them, trying to break the ice and address my own hunger that nagged at me. "You got anything to eat around here?"

"You read my mind," Miltia said stretching herself with a cute little moan, "I'm starving."

"We could order something," Melanie suggested to me. "We don't really keep much in our fridge except for leftovers and drinks, the kitchen was fully stocked when we moved in though."

"What's time is it?" Miltia asked her sister. "We could order a pizza."

"You don't cook?" I asked them, personally finding the idea of ordering a pizza for breakfast a little unappetizing.

"Not our thing," Miltia told me with a shrug, "we never really bothering to learn to use much besides a microwave."

"It's almost noon," Melanie said, checking her phone before raising it up to snap a picture of us.

"What was that for?" I asked her as she looked at the picture on her scroll it had all three of us naked and in bed together.

"I'm sending you a commemorative picture," Melanie answered me with a teasing smirk, "I thought you might want a memento for popping your cherry."

"You're not going to let me live that down aren't you?" I asked her with an exaggerated sigh.

"Nope," Miltia said to me in a singsong voice, "besides you did just fine for your first time."

"Thanks, it was certainly memorable," I told them honestly.

Melanie winked at me, "we'll do it again sometime, invite us along the next time you have some enemies that need to have their heads busted. And that time we really will try nyotaimori."

I smiled at her, not really sure if she was joking about eating body sushi or not and the thought about food reminded me about my own hunger, "I noticed a bodega downstairs," I suggested trying to bring the focus back to breakfast.

"The owner doesn't like us and refuses to serve us," Miltia cut in before I could finish my idea.

"He hates us," Melanie corrected, "I broke his son's wrist when he touched me," she explained to me with a proud little smirk.

"Well he doesn't know me," I continued, "I could get something and make you breakfast, as a thank you for a wonderful night."

The twins looked at one another, "I could do for a home cooked meal Melanie," Miltia said to her sister with a shrug.

"So could I Miltia," she agreed with a little nod, "It's been awhile since anybody cooked for us."

"Alright," I said, "how about eggs, bacon and toast?" I said thinking of the easy meals I knew how to cook for my younger siblings growing up.

"Sounds like a plan, but you should probably shower first," Miltia said looking me up and down.

I nodded still feeling the unwashed sweat on my skin from last night. "Alright, how about I hop in and then the two of you can wash up while I cook breakfast?" I suggested getting up and snubbing out my cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand a little embarrassed by my nakedness.

Melanie giggled at me. "Oh? And here I thought you might want some help washing your back."

I tried to deflect her suggestion with a nervous chuckle while I tried to move to the bathroom but Miltia and Melanie followed me in all the same with sinful smirks.

I showered with a bit of company and dressed myself in the clothes I wore yesterday before going downstairs and getting some eggs and bacon and coming back up to cook. I realized then that I had missed my weekly phone call to Ozpin hours ago, I reminded myself to try calling later tonight and explain what happened to me. I wasn't going to tell him about the sex, that was my business.

I got back up to the kitchen and made use of their hardly ever used stove and pans making a few sausage and cheese omelettes along with some toast and bacon strips. The girls watched TV in their bathrobes while I cooked, commenting that the humble meal smelled quite good to them. When I finally brought the plates in they almost inhaled the omelettes.

"This is really good!" Melanie commented after swallowing a fork full of eggs sausage and cheese.

"It's just a simple omelette," I said bashfully as I ate my own. "My mother taught me to make them."

"Do you cook a lot?" Miltia asked me as she grabbed her mug of coffee.

"I used to help my mom out in the kitchen and cook for my younger siblings, I haven't done much coming to Vale," I explained to them.

"We should bring him here to cook for us more often Miltia," Melanie suggested with a hungry grin.

"We totally should Melanie," Miltia agreed with her sister.

I wondered what my mother would have to say if she could see me using those cooking skills now. I let their comments pass me by as I ate knowing that any protests would be willfully ignored by the two of them. Besides it was flattering to listen to the two of them compliment my cooking, even if they were suggesting rather lewd ways to get more of it.

"Are you free Tuesday night?" Miltia asked me before biting into a piece of toast.

"I got no plans," I explained to her, a little pleased that the conversation had shifted. "Toshi and I usually just hit up a bar after checking up on our sales."

"Great!" Melanie said happily, picking up a crispy piece of bacon. "Then you can pick us up at eight."

"What's happening at eight on Tuesday?" I asked them, a little pleased to be getting roped into another date.

"It's Junior's birthday," Melanie explained to me.

"Oh… I had no idea," I said to them a little surprised that I was being invited to such an event.

"That's alright, Junior isn't really the type to go all out for his birthday, he's a business before pleasure type of person so we took the opportunity to book his favorite DJ for the occasions, he should draw a crowd if nothing else."

"Should I bring a gift?" I asked, having almost no idea what I could get Junior. What do you get a guy who owns nightclubs and runs a multi-million lien crime syndicate?

Melanie shrugged, "if you want, again Junior isn't big on birthdays so I doubt he'd even mind if you showed up empty handed."

I scarfed down the rest of the breakfast and checked the time. "I need to head out," I told them standing up and gulping down the rest of my coffee, "I'm already late for today's collections."

"If O-Ushi gets mad you can just explain that we were kidnapped you," Miltia said to me, "we'll owe her another favor."

"I was already planning on it," I said opening the Rickshaw Cab Co app and ordering a cab to take me back to my apartment so I could change my clothes and use my new car. "I'll see you Tuesday at eight," I promised, actually a little excited to have a future date planned with them.

I still had many lingering feelings of guilt towards all of this, but I was already in good with Mel and Mil, the twins were close personal enforcers for Junior himself so giving them the cold shoulder would have been unwise and possibly dangerous. Snubbing two girls who were in a business that was accustomed to violence couldn't have been a smart play. But honestly I just liked the two of them, they were fun to hang with. They were confident and sexy and they somehow brought out a side of me I liked. Maybe I was just being selfish for going along with whatever we had, but I did and I can't say that I regret it.

I took one of O-Ushi's cabs back to my little apartment and called Ozpin to report on how my week went. I told him about raiding the 24k Dragon's chop shop and pretended that I had just been too hung over to pick up the scroll. I can't help but wonder what he would have said if I told him the truth.

The next several days went by more or less how I expected. I did my collections, I helped Toshi out with our dvd pirating business and I occasionally was asked to provide extra security against the 24k Dragons.

Whatever message O-Ushi was hoping to send to the Dragons by smashing up their shop didn't exactly work. Instead the punks took it as an invitation to throw off the kid gloves and ramp up their attacks.

One of the businesses that paid for our protection had a few of the thugs come in and threaten to burn the place down. They almost tried but thankfully one of O-Ushi's guys was already there and they ran off the minute he pulled a gun out and threatened them.

Other places weren't so lucky. The cafe Toshi and I pirated DVDs out of had a brick thrown in through the window, it hit a barista and to keep good faith and keep the place in our protection O-Ushi paid for the damages and the hospital bills of that barista.

In a strange way Junior's Clan was a lot like a neighborhood watch, if anyone in Little Mistral saw trouble they called their local wiseguys to take care of it. People here trusted their local gangsters more than their local cops. Living above Hana's laundromat pretty much meant that I was always on the clock looking out for her and her business.

One night I woke to find her knocking on my door frantically and she sent me downstairs in my boxers where four of the fucking punks were smashing the place up and tagging it with graffiti. I managed to scare them off easy just by waving my gun at them. And then I stayed up trying to help her clean up the place.

"Has anything like this happened to you before?" I asked Hana as I scrubbed up a bit of graffiti they left on the floor.

She shook her head as she swept up some broken glass. "Not in a very long time, stuff like this used to happen before the Kuroi Kuma clan took power, before "Papa" Xiong," she sighed, "it's disgraceful, some of these young men used to play with my own children."

"Wow, that has to sting," I said, trying to imagine what she could possibly feel about all of this.

"These fools have forgotten where they came from," she explained to me, "and it has led them to turn against their own people."

I could only wonder how long it would be before someone got killed over this. So far things had been rough and brutal and nobody had gotten killed. But between O-Ushi getting shot and the time they pulled guns on the twins I just knew that it was only a matter of time before somebody was dead in the streets. I had no doubt that the 24k Dragons would lose if it came to that, but I knew that these Atlesians I had yet to see were the real threat waiting in the shadows for a reason to strike.

But it wasn't like I was in any position to do anything serious about it. I was just a lowly associate with no real say in Clan politics. And it wasn't like I had any answers to this dilemma anyhow, I understood why Junior was trying to hold onto whatever peace he could, turning the other cheek to the 24k Dragons seemed preferable to letting the Atlesians do something much much worse. But how long the Clan would choose to endure this was anyone's guess, but even I could see that this wouldn't last forever.

The days passed normally enough till the night of Junior's birthday. I got him a bottle of his favorite single malt whiskey, Glengoolie 16 year. It was the same stuff I sipped on in his office the night I saved O-Ushi so I figured it would be good if nothing else. Thankfully the twins were happy to tell me Junior's favorite brand when I texted them for gift ideas.

I picked Melanie and Miltia up in my new car more than happy to let them slide in the single passenger seat as before. "Wow!" I said looking at the two of them dressed in red and white silk cocktail dresses as they opened the door of their apartment.

"Like what you see?" Melanie asked, striking a pose.

I nodded approvingly.

"See Melanie, I told you they'd be a hit," Miltia bragged.

"I suppose you were right Miltia, as always," Melanie relented to her twin and took hold of my arm to walk out.

We drove to the club and like before the street and sidewalk was crowded with people trying to get in so I decided to go down the street to park behind the club. But as I passed the sidewalk outside the club I did a double take at the crowd outside. I had spotted a strangely familiar pair of rabbit ears sticking up over everyone's heads, with a stylish brown haired girl in a beret sitting next to her faunus friend.

"Something wrong?" Miltia asked, noticing me staring.

"No," I told them looking away and focusing back on the road. I parked the car and the twins suggested we go in through the back so we entered in through the kitchen and straight up the stairs into the VIP section.

When we got in there were some decorations set up and a pile of gifts on the table. Junior was observing the show through a window that overlooked the club, his head was nodding along to the beat the DJ put down and wore a little smirk as he did so. "Enjoying the party?" both twins asked him as they released my arm.

"Hey girls!" Junior greeted opening his arms to the twins in greeting and giving them each a friendly pat on their shoulders. "Thanks for setting this up, this is perfect," he said motioning to the packed club outside, "how did you book this guy?"

"We had a talk with his manager," Melanie said vaguely.

Junior raised an eyebrow at the two of them.

"Not like that!" Miltia laughed, "we helped him with a few problems and he moved his schedule around," she explained, "he's even open to booking gigs in the future."

Junior smiled, "Good! Now go get a couple drinks and enjoy yourselves." He ordered them before looking over to me and stepping close.

"Happy birthday," I said to him, handing over the bottle of single malt with the little ribbon on it.

"My favorite," Junior observed looking at the bottle before looking back up at me, "thanks."

"It's good stuff," I told him, "I can see why you like it so much."

He set the bottle down on a table where other gifts waited for him. "O-Ushi tells me that you've been adapting well to the life," he said to me, "I heard you've been stepping up against the 24k Dragons."

I chucked and scratched the back of my head awkwardly, "well I'm just trying to fit in," I told him.

"Melanie and Miltia seem to think well of you too," he went on, "they wouldn't have invited you here if they didn't."

"Oh well… I mean they're great," I told him. I felt suddenly like I was a guy having a talk with my date's father, it was weird.

"You don't have to tell me that," he said, taking me by the shoulder and leading me to the bar, "and they tell me you're quite the gentleman."

"Really?" I asked him as he signaled for the bartender to bring us a couple of drinks.

"Surprised?" he asked me, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm more surprised that I was worth mentioning," I admitted to him. I was just another boy-toy to them after all and I doubt that they gossiped with Junior about their friends with benefits.

Junior laughed at me, "Worth mentioning?" he said, "Kid, the last two months I've been hearing plenty about you and the work you've done," he explained to me as the bartender set out a couple of martinis for us.

I could practically hear Ozpin's praise as I reported to him that the clan's head honcho was apparently talking about me. Progress was progress after all.

"I didn't know my services were so noteworthy. I thought my contributions to the business would be beneath your notice," I explained to him, "I mean Mel and Mil said they'd tell you about the time we handled those Dragons dealing drugs down the street, but I figured that'd be a footnote in your day."

Junior chuckled a little before taking his first sip, "Kid listen to me because I have some wisdom for you. Believe it or not being at the top doesn't put you above what happens in the street, if anything it's the opposite. In this business shit rolls uphill, a problem in the streets quickly becomes my problem."

"I never thought about it like that," I said, taking my drink and having my first sip.

"Few do," he said, giving my shoulder a rough pat with his massive hand, "enjoy yourself kid, and keep up the good work."

I rejoined the twins and we looked out over the club with our drinks. "Have a good talk with Junior?" Miltia asked me as we watched the dancers on the floor moving it up.

"Yeah," I said to them as I scanned the crowd and saw the familiar set of rabbit ears. Sure enough I recognized my former upperclassmen Velvet Scarlatina and Coco Adel sitting at one of the tables talking about something over a couple of drinks, probably just soft drinks I thought. I had gotten so used to drinking despite being underage that I actually found it kind of funny.

"He wanted to thank me for my good work," I explained to them, "and he gave me some advice."

Melanie chuckled, "That's Junior for you," she said to me, turning back to the rest of the room, "he's always concerned with morale."

We continued on with our drinks and mingled with the other wiseguys that were coming in. Tonen and O-Ushi came in and they even introduced me to a couple of the other underbosses within the clan and I began to realize just how much I had been talked about.

"So this the white kid you've been bragging about O-Ushi!?" This one woman Iwa said looking me up and giving me a playful punch to the shoulder. "You better be paying him well or I'm going to steal him from you."

"I like my kneecaps too much to take your money," I casually joked to her, ribbing O-Ushi a little.

Everyone laughed and we continued on trading stories with one another and casually talked among one another. After getting acquainted with most of the guests and finishing my first drink Melanie and Miltia took my hand and started leading me out so we could hit the dance floor.

When we left the VIP room and got onto the main floor of the club I took a look over and saw Velvet sitting alone and watching the DJ. She was moving her head to the beat and her large rabbit ears flopped a bit with the movement. But I saw that something was wrong. Her rhythm was slightly off and she seemed rather vacant slouched in her chair and I couldn't help but wonder if maybe she was drunk.

We got to the floor and started dancing together. I saw that Coco had also taken to the floor with some pretty redhead clearly enjoying herself as the two of them moved together without a care in the world. But as much as I tried enjoying my dance with the twins I couldn't help but glance over to Velvet sitting all alone.

"Bunny girls huh?" Melanie asked me.

"Huh?" I said looking away from Velvet who almost looked drowsy in her seat and back to the girls I was dancing with.

"You keep staring at that faunus girl with the bunny ears," Milita explained cutting in.

"Yeah, you got a faunus fetish?" Melanie said, "I mean… she's certainly cute. I wonder if she has a little cotton-tail in her pants? You want us to find out Jaune?"

I blushed, "no it's not that," I stammered to them, "It's just…"

I looked back to the table and suddenly she was gone. I didn't really know Velvet well from my short time at Beacon but I got the feeling she wouldn't just ditch her teammate in a club like this. And even if she had been drinking she shouldn't have appeared so drunk, not unless she had been pounding them back. "Something's wrong," I said to the two of them and disengaged to head off the dance floor. They watched as I rushed away.

Part of me was trying to tell myself that I was paranoid, that maybe she had just gone to the bathroom. But I had a bad feeling in my gut and I listened to it. I stepped off the floor and moved around the club trying to spot her. There was a line for the women's room that she wasn't standing in so I moved and spotted her ears going right for the exit.

I moved across the club and shuffled through a crowd of people and went into the cool night where I saw her being led away by some guy with a hideous leopard print shirt with his arm draped over her leading her away.

"Hey!" I shouted at him as they turned down an alley. I broke into a sprint and rounded the alley to see him looking back at me. Before he could even make a move I closed the distance and clocked him across the jaw.

He went stumbling down to the ground and Velvet went with him. I took her hand and pulled her away. "Are you alright?" I asked her, giving the jerk on the ground a kick to the face.

Velvet mumbled something incoherently as she wobbled on her feet confirming my suspicions that she wasn't in her right mind. This guy was over twice her age and I'm sure that Coco wouldn't let her friend leave with a guy wearing an ugly shirt like that.

"Jaune what the fuck is going on!" I heard Melanie cry from behind me and I turned to see Miltia and a bouncer following close behind seeing me holding Velvet by her arm and the guy on the ground groaning in pain.

"This fucker attacked me!" The shithead protested trying to make himself seem as innocent as possible here.

"He drugged her," I explained to Melanie letting Velvet's unintelligible words make my point for me. Just a few incoherent mumbles from the poor girl made my point.

My word and Velvet's confused stupor was all that needed to be said for them to believe me. "Motherfucker!" Melanie said, giving the guy a kick right to the face and sending him down with a bleeding nose. "Get him inside now before I kill him!" Melanie growled to the bouncer, "take him in the back and wait for us, we'll be there soon to teach him some fucking manners."

I nodded as I watched the tall bouncer lift him up like a sack of potatoes and go down the alley towards the rear entrance with this guy kicking and screaming. I turned to Miltia and Melanie, "I'm going to find her friend," I told them handing Velvet's arm over to Miltia who didn't seem quite as scary save for the murderous glare she was giving the guy as the bouncer dragged him away.

"We'll look after her," Melanie promised as I moved back into the club and made a beeline for the dance floor.

Coco was still dancing it up with the pretty redhead and I hated the fact that I was probably going to ruin her night. But I gathered what courage I could and moved to her and gave her a tap on the shoulder.

The first look she gave me was one of annoyance but after she took a moment to look me over a flash of recognition met her eyes. "Jaune… Jaune Arc?" She asked over the loud booming music. I was honestly surprised that she even knew my name. I hadn't talked to her in my entire time at Beacon.

"Sorry to interrupt you," I told her leaning in so she could hear me, "but there's been an incident with Velvet."

"What?" She said a little too loudly, looking horrified, "is she alright?"

I moved her out over the dance floor before I began explaining the situation to her. "She's safe," I said hoping that piece of news would at least ease her a little bit, "someone drugged her and tried to take her away, she's out of sorts."

"Fuck!" Coco cursed, "Where is she?"

"She's outside, I have a couple of friends looking after her at the moment," I explained to her, "I can call you a cab."

She nodded to me and took in a deep breath as we stepped outside. "Where's the son of bitch that did this?" was her next question.

"In the back," I explained to her as I used O-Ushi's app to call a cab for the two of them, "he's being taken care of by the bouncers."

"I want to see him," she growled to me clearly furious.

"That's not necessary," I assured her, stopping after I put in the order into the app, "trust me he's getting everything he deserves, right now Velvet needs you."

I watched her hard gaze soften and she released a sigh. "Fine… just make sure that he doesn't get away with this."

"I will," I promised her knowing that right now Junior's boys were probably making him regret a lot of things at the very moment. Calling the badges to take him away would have probably been a mercy.

We stepped into the alleyway where both Melanie and Miltia were waiting with Velvet who was currently sitting down with her back against the wall of the building. "This her friend?" Melanie asked me, dropping her half smoked cigarette and crushing it with her shoe.

"Yeah," I told them with a nod, "Thanks for watching her, I called them a cab."

Miltia nodded to me and snubbed out her own cigarette, "we'll be inside Jaune, when you're ready."

I took a deep breath of the cool night air and reached into my jacket for my cigarette case and lit one as I waited with them. Coco sat down next to Velvet who seemed to be unconscious at the moment.

"What are you doing here Jaune?" Coco asked me as she held onto Velvet protectively.

"It's a nightclub, I'm doing what people usually do in places like this," I said shrugging my shoulders, "drinks, dancing, girls, you get it."

She chuckled a little, "No I mean… What happened to you? Why aren't you at Beacon anymore?"

"I'm surprised you even noticed," I said to her taking a puff off my cigarette, "this is the first time we're even talking."

"Hey I watched the initiation the same as everyone," she explained to me, "plus the partner of a world class fighter is a little hard to ignore."

I chuckled seeing her logic, "How is Pyrrha?" I asked her genuinely wanting to know how she and the rest of my team was faring without me. I figured not having a fraud like me on their team was probably a plus for the three of them.

"I'm not exactly on talking terms with her," she answered me, "But I heard she got hurt, some asshole played a prank on her with some rapier wasps and she had an allergic reaction."

"Fuck," I said, shocked to hear that, "is she alright?"

"She's fine now," Coco assured me, "and I heard the guys responsible for it got expelled. But don't change the question on me Jaune, why aren't you in Beacon anymore?"

I sighed and took a long drag off my cigarette, "I wasn't huntsman material so I left and found a job," I lied to her.

"It must be a nice job if that suit is any indication," she said to me looking me up and down.

"It was a gift from my supervisor," I explained to her.

"Really, your supervisor? What kind of job is it?" she asked me.

I took a drag off my cigarette to think about it just a little bit, "I work for the club owner," I said figuring that it was true enough, "I'm like… an assistant, and since I work here they want me to dress nice."

She gave me a dubious look. She clearly wasn't buying it, it's not like the bouncers and bartenders wore anything this nice. But thankfully she just shrugged and dropped the subject. "You wear those threads well," she complimented to me, "I hope this new job works out for you."

"Me too," I told her with a smirk, "It wasn't what I expected, but it's working out for me. And it comes with more than a few perks."

"Like those two girls?" Coco asked me, jabbing me playfully with her elbow.

I chuckled bashfully, "no comment."

She raised an amused eyebrow at me, "You got their scroll numbers?" she asked with a predatory grin. "Care to help an old classmate out?"

"Get them yourself," I told her with a laugh.

"You know I could take it from you," she said to me.

I threw down my finished cigarette and stomped it out. "Well are you?" I asked her.

"Maybe later," she said, taking out her own scroll, "but beating you up for a couple of phone numbers would be a poor way to thank you. How about you give me your digits instead."

"What for?" I asked her.

"I owe you one for tonight," she said as I entered my number into her scroll, "you helped my friend out so I think I owe you at least one favor."

"I didn't do this for a favor," I told her handing the scroll back, "I would have done this for a complete stranger, hell before tonight you and Velvet were practically strangers to me."

"Well no good deed goes unrewarded in my book," she said to me watching as the cab pulled up and we helped Velvet get up and quietly walk over to get in,

"T-thank you," the fanus girl slurred to me and I just nodded to her as Coco buckled her in.

"Take them to the Bullhead station," I said to the cab driver handing him a wad of cash, "make sure they get their safety and soundly," I instructed, "and take it easy on the turns, the girl there isn't feeling well."

The driver nodded to me and I said my final goodbye to Coco and watched the cab drive off. When I got back inside to the club I moved back and was called over to a back room behind the kitchen where the scumbag I had caught was currently locked away in a walk in freezer.

"We found these on him," Miltia explained to me, showing a bag of pills as well as a knife and what I suspected was a vial of coke.

"We thought you should have the honor of teaching him some manners," Melanie told me motioning to the door, "just save a little for me Jaune, you can't have all the fun."

I took a breath and removed my jacket before opening the door to a mostly empty room with only a few boxes stacked in the corner. The guy glared at me as I stepped and clenched his fists. "You're gonna be fucking sorry for this cocksucker!" He shouted, taking a swing at me. I let his fist connect with my aura and listened as he screamed in pain and cradled his hand. Then I gave him a right hook and sent him to the ground.

I don't consider myself to be a violent man. But I won't deny that smacking around this asshole felt good, really good. I just tried to imagine what kind of twisted evil Velvet could have endured and it guided my fist. I thought about the fact that he had probably done this kind of thing to other women and it helped me put power into my kicks. And the fact that he kept cursing me and telling me that I was going to regret this only fueled my anger and fury at him. I am not a cruel person, but watching him spit out his bloody teeth was undeniably satisfying. Had this been any other guy I might have taken it easy on him, or at least felt guilty for taking justice into my own hands like this. But that night I didn't have much mercy. That night I was more than happy to let my first teach him a lesson.

I was panting after maybe a good twenty minutes of roughing him up. "Your turn!" I told Melanie, tagging her in after my fists were sore and a little bruised from beating the shit out of him.

"Junior will be here soon," Miltia told me handing over a towel so I could clean the blood off my hands and face.

"What's gonna happen to him?" I asked her knowing full well that the Clan never handled their business by calling the police. I looked over the few possessions the bouncers had confiscated from him and saw a matchbook with the title Caboose on it with an old fashioned train caboose on it along with an address.

"Junior will decide that," Miltia explained coldly, "but he doesn't have a lot of tolerance for scum like this, this fucker will be lucky if he leaves with his ball let alone his life."

"Fuck!" We heard Melanie curse on the other end of the door and we threw it open to find her staring at the guy who was panting on the ground. His hideous leopard print shirt was torn up and I looked to see that his chest was marked by numerous crude tattoos.

I was getting used to seeing plenty of clan members sporting ink. They usually had arm or even body sleeves that were beautiful works of art depicting everything from old Mistrali samurai to tigers and great mythical beasts. But these tattoos were not elegant or pretty, they were just simple black lines across the body.

"Fuck," Miltia said mirroring her sister as she knelt down to look at the marking even closer.

"What is it?" I asked her having no idea what these ugly tattoos could mean.

"These are Atlesian prison tats," Melanie said pointing at one tattoo over his heart of a skull wearing a crown. "See that crown? It means this asshole is a made man for the Atlesians, and it means he killed someone in prison to become one."

"How do you know it was in prison?" I asked them.

"Because that's the only place Atesians get made," Miltia said, "but that's not the problem… if he's a made member then no one is supposed to even raise a hand to him without consequences."

As my mind began processing that I heard the guy laugh despite his broken nose and teeth. "That's right," he hissed coughing up a mouthful of blood, "I doubt you Clan bitches will get more than than a slap on the wrist," he hissed looking right at me, "but you blondie are gonna have your head on a silver fucking platter!"

I froze hearing that, I was the first person to touch him and even though Melanie and Miltia had raised their hands to him they were Clan members and doubtlessly Junior would protect them. But me? I was just an associate, I wasn't even Mistrali.

"You're pretty stupid, aren't you?" I turned and saw Junior standing in the doorway and stepping right past me to pick the guy up off the ground. He looked at a chain tattooed onto his shoulder and scowled. "You come here to my fucking club to poach girls!?" He growled before delivering a punch into his stomach making him double over. "You come into my club so you can traffic flesh!" He yelled at him before smashing him into the wall and letting him drop.

"I'm one of Michail's boys!" The guy cried to him, "he's going to hear about this!"

"Oh I know he will!" Junior growled at him, "and what the fuck do you think he's gonna do when I tell him that you crossed the line? I could kill you right now for this, I should kill you. But what do you think is going to happen when I demand justice from Nicky?"

The guy spat blood onto Junior's shoes, "he wouldn't dare," he growled before Junior put his size thirteen shoe into his face.

"We'll see," Junior said to him, "but if you think I'm going to give up this gentleman for raising a hand to a sex trafficking piece of shit like you then you clearly have underestimated me and the lengths I will go for my people!"

We turned to leave and I noticed that O-Ushi, Tonen and Kaiu along with others had come to see the show. The door closed behind us all and Junior turned right to me.

"Jaune!?" he said looking right into my eyes.

"Y-yeah?" I replied feeling a little shaken after watching him beat that guy down. Drops of blood still speckled on his face.

Both of his hands reached out touching my face, I felt like he could have crushed my skull with his bare hands, he was so big and imposing. He gripped me tightly and pulled me in kissing the top of my head. "Excellent work!" He said, still holding my face in his hands. He grinned triumphantly at me. "I owe you for this!"

I was stunned and confused trying to process what he was saying. "W-what?" I stuttered.

"You caught one of Michail's boys crossing a very serious line tonight," Junior explained, keeping an arm around my shoulder as we walked back to the VIP room. "This is much worse than a street gang dealing their drugs on our turf, this is a serious offence."

I quietly processed just how such a violation could possibly be a good thing and was stumped but decided I could ask him once we had reached wherever he was taking me. We got back into the VIP room and Junior grabbed the bottle of whiskey I had gifted to him and proceeded to uncork it, "A glass for me and this gentleman right here," he said to the bartender, flashing me a grin and patting my shoulder with his massive hand. The bartender gave him two empty glasses and Junior filled them with the smokey amber drink practically shoving the glass in my hand and clinking them together as if to toast.

"So what?" I asked him, "What happens now? What happens to that guy?"

"I'm going to let him crawl back to his boss Michail" Junior explained to me, "He's the one that's been supplying the 24k Dragons with their drugs and making my life difficult. I'm going to demand justice for this, Michail should pay the price for this, it was his man after all."

"So that guy just goes free?" I asked him.

Junior smirked, "I doubt it," he said, "the Atlesians don't take failure well. I would have killed him with a bullet to the head but I doubt his superiors will be so merciful. Michail can punish his own guy however he wants, I want Michail to be held responsible for what has happened."

I shuddered to think what kind of punishment would make death seem merciful. "What can you demand from Michail?" I asked him wondering just how Junior planned to end up on top from tonight's incident.

"I can demand quite a lot for this," Junior explained to me. "I might even be able to demand that he cease his dealings with the 24k Dragons or at the very least try to pay for my appeasement. If Michail doesn't make this right then the Prince is going to have to get involved or risk war. The ball is in my court." He explained to me taking another sip of his Glengoolie.

"So letting this guy go means you have the right to demand a lot from his boss Michail?" I asked, trying to simplify it out loud. "And if he doesn't appease you then you have justification to strike back?"

"Now you're getting it," Junior told me. "You did a good thing tonight kid," he said, clapping me on the shoulder once more.

"I was just trying to help out a girl I saw in trouble," I explained to him, "I had no idea that guy was working for the Atleaisans."

Junior raised his glass to me, "you're a true gentleman kid."

We took our glasses from the bar and went back to mingle among the rest of the party guests. Junior was already calling for everyone to meet him later and discuss the latest development. My contribution tonight aside there was still some business that I was not allowed to listen in on.

The night went on. I drank and conversed with everyone until Junior went back with his underbosses to discuss business and the rest of the night's developments. The rest of the night went standard, I drank, I danced with Melanie and Miltia, and I even went back to their apartment again by the end of the night.

But for the rest of that night I wasn't called kid or even Jaune. That night I got a new name that has stuck with me ever since. That night everyone called me Gentleman.


	10. Chapter 9: A Painful Reminder of Beacon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'll swallow my blood before I swallow my pride." ~ Al Capone

"That is quite a story Mr. Arc," Ozpin mused to me the morning after I had spotted and stopped the Atlesian in the club trying to take Velvet.

"So what do you make of it?" I asked him, lighting a cigarette and looking out the window to the street outside my apartment. "The clan is getting ready to go to war with the Altesians if Nicky doesn't deliver justice to Junior."

Ozpin chuckled, "justice is a funny way to describe what he is going to ask for but yes, if this leads to a war then it could very well put a damper on Junior's other criminal enterprises."

"You mean the dust robberies," I said knowing that Ozpin cared about only one thing in regard to the Clan's so called criminal enterprises.

"Indeed I do Mr. Arc," Ozpin admitted to me.

"So you want the Clan to go to war?" I asked him, finding the thought a little disconcerting. If half of what O-Ushi had told me about the Altesians being at war was like it sounded like the last possible thing anyone could want. She had told me that nothing was held back or off limits to them, it would doubtlessly be bloody.

"Right now Mr. Arc the Atlesians are the enemy of my enemy, certainly not friends by any means, but a welcome thorn in both Junior's and Roman's sides. If it leads to war then I would be a fool not to take advantage of the situation." Ozpin explained to me.

I didn't say anything to that. So far I had nothing but hatred for the Atlesians and what they had done. "I found something on the guy I caught," I explained to him, "a matchbook for some bar on the west side of town near the railyards."

"That is one of the areas the Atlesian's have claimed as their territory," Ozpin mused, "what of it?"

"If they have control of the rail yard I was thinking it might be a part of their smuggling operations," I explained to him, "After what happened to Velvet I was wondering if maybe it would be worth checking out, it might even be a part of their human trafficking operations."

"I can certainly talk to my friends in the police department about looking further into it," Ozpin said. "What is the name of the bar?"

"The Caboose," I answered him feeling more than a little let down with his response, "I can look into it myself maybe, take a car and just get a look at the area."

"You are not a detective Mr. Arc, and that area would be very dangerous. The Atlesians probably have already heard of you and I have no doubt that they would take advantage of you sneaking around in their territory. Focus on your current task before setting your sights on the rest of the criminals in Vale. Leave it to the proper authorities." he told me.

I wanted to protest. I didn't have any real hope that the police would make any significant breakthroughs considering so many cops in the Vale Police Department were already on the payroll. Bribing cops and public officials to keep their noses out of criminal operations were par for the course in this kind of life. Even if Ozpin did have some trustworthy badges to send in I knew that the corrupt ones would do everything to slow them down. It could take months for anything to happen and by them the Atlesians's would have burned down their operations and changed to something else. Nothing would change the worst people would probably get away.

"Mr. Arc?" Ozpin asked, pulling me away from my thoughts.

"Yes?"

"How are you holding up?" he asked me in a serious but friendly tone.

The question took me by surprise, "What do you mean?"

"We usually have these calls much earlier in the day, but this time and the last you were rather late," he explained to me.

That was because both times I had slept over at the Malachite's apartment and wasn't able to get back in a timely manner. "I was just a little busy," I explained to him using a half truth, "I'm out all night with these people and when you drink like we do couch crashing is pretty normal."

"I understand that your situation must be difficult," Ozpin said to me, sounding sympathetic, "you're doing this with no friends and no allies and I would understand if you felt lonely and afraid undergoing all of this."

Lonely? Maybe only a little. But that was a loneliness I was accustomed to. Faking my way into Beacon and pretending that I was something I wasn't had been the same kind of lonely. It wasn't that I lacked company, it was that I couldn't be honest with those I was around. But afraid? My fear of these people had been slowly dissolving as I became more and more acquainted with the life. Hell Junior had even stood up for me last night after I had beaten that guy to a pulp.

"I'm fine," I assured him, lying through my teeth.

"Good, you're doing excellent work Mr. Arc so hold your course," he told me before he hung up.

I hid my scroll back inside the useless electrical outlet and dressed for my day to make collections wondering just what kind of course Ozpin had set me on. I felt like I was stumbling in the dark through this mission. Maybe I could have told him about everything, but the last thing I wanted was for him to pull the plug on my work and ruin my chances of becoming a huntsmen.

Around late afternoon that day I got lunch with Toshi after I had dropped my collections off at O-Ushi's. We stopped at one of the finest ramen houses in the entire city, I got my usual bowl of pork miso ramen.

"I was talking to Tonen earlier today," Tosi explained as I gathered the delicious noodles on my chopsticks, "he says he's going to suggest I officially be welcomed into the clan… as a full member."

"That's awesome!" I said looking up from my steaming bowl, "congratulations my man, we should celebrate! Are you up for some karaoke tonight? Maybe get some drinks and meet a couple girls?"

"Let's save the celebrations for when it happens," he said unable to hide his grin, "I don't wanna get my hopes up."

I chuckled at him, "it looks to me like you already got your hopes up dude," I said to him with a grin, "otherwise you wouldn't be telling me."

"Ok... maybe a little," he admitted, "but you're the only person I've told so keep this to yourself."

"I will," I promised him, "but what are you planning on doing once it's official?"

He shrugged, "I talked about that a little bit with Tonen, he said he'd help me set up a used car dealership and sell some of his vehicles, then maybe I could look into starting some of my own businesses."

I chuckled, "before long I might be calling you boss."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," he grinned, "there's no way O-Ushi would even let go of a Gentleman like you."

I sighed, it had only been last night but already that name was starting to stick with everyone. "Word gets around fast," I said, scratching the back of my head with embarrassment.

"You mean about you beating some manners into that Atlesian?" He asked with a proud smile, "I doubt anyone in the clan hasn't heard about that yet."

I shrugged, "I just did what I could," I told him, "it was no big deal, I just got lucky."

"Well Gentleman I could sure use those fists of yours again today," he said, picking up his ramen bowl to drink the remaining broth. "I caught word that one of the stands selling our bootlegs has also been dealing with the 24k Dragons."

"You think they're selling drugs for them?" I asked, looking away from my own bowl. If one of our sellers was working under the table with the Dragons then it meant that Toshi and I could be held accountable.

"I wanna find out," Toshi told me, setting his empty bowl down on the table.

"Then let's go," I said, slipping down the broth of my ramen and leaving a generous tip. We took Toshi's car and sure enough we found one of the stands outside a shop that was selling our pirated dvds.

"Hey Jing," Toshi greeted looking over his table. The moves and video games and other cheap fake merchandise crowded the stand.

"Toshi, Jaune!" Jing greeted us with a grin, "I thought I already gave both of you your money this week. By the way I need more copies of Third Crusade, they've been selling very well."

"We'll keep that in mind," I told him, trying to be friendly and not accuse him outright. "And this isn't about the money, you're all paid up."

"We are here because Han told me you were making deals with the 24k Dragons," Toshi clarified. "Is that true Jing? Are you selling drugs for them?"

Jing chuckled, "I don't know what Han is thinking... dudes… that's bullshit you have to believe me he's fucking lying."

"Then let's check your goods," I suggested, "there's no point in waiting, let's have a look at what's on you."

Jing stood up and pulled his coat open, "I got nothing on me!" he said, pulling his pockets out for us to see little more than lint and a pack of cigarettes.

"But you got a van right?" I said knowing that he had more than just this simple stand's worth of bootlegs on him. "Show us the van, if it's clean we're done here and we'll see about getting you copies of Third Crusade."

Jing nodded and led us down the alley. The fact that he didn't even ask anyone to watch his stand was already suspicious to me. We reached his van and he opened the back up for the both of us to inside. I pulled out a box filled with our bootleg movies and video games.

The next thing I heard was Jing sprinting down the alley away from us. We turned around and dropped the boxes to run after him, he barely made it fifty feet before Toshi caught him by his jacket and punched him across the face.

"Son of a bitch ! Why are you running!?" Toshi said, throwing him up against the wall and delivering several more smacks across his cheek.

"Fuck Toshi I'm sorry dude I'm fucking sorry," Jing stammered with blood and tears steaming down his face. Toshi punched him again in the stomach making him double over so he could bring his knee up.

"Why did you run!?" Toshi asked again, smashing Jiro's back into the wall once more.

I was already back to checking the van and was throwing open the boxes and pulling out our merchandise. Sure enough I found a bag full of pills near the back and I held it up for Toshi to see. "Yup, we got pills here," I told Toshi as he proceeded to treat Jing's face as a punching bag.

"I'm sorry," Jiro cried through a bloody nose, "It's just that stuff moves man, that bag alone is worth more than all those disks. It sells so well, do you know how much some of these gamers will pay just to stay up all night."

"So sell some fucking energy drinks! Not drugs you fucking rat!" I spat at him pulling more bags out of the van.

"Did the 24k Dragons sell it to you?" Toshi asked as I threw the bag onto the street and proceeded to crush the little white pills with my shoe till it was a powder.

"Yeah," Jiro said, sadly looking at the pills being destroyed right before him. "But I've been buying directly from a dealer."

"Where?" Toshi asked him, stepping away to let him whimper in pain.

"Jun's place on 86th," Jiro answered him as I poured the powdered pills out all over the alley, "He's been selling it out of his apartment for the Dragons."

Toshi gave him one final right hook to his chin and turned. "You don't work for us anymore, and you're lucky you're already paid up or we would be taking everything you got on you," Toshi told him while walking away with me.

"What am I supposed to do?" Jiro called after us. "If I don't pay the Dragons back for those pills they're gonna do something horrible to me."

"You think I give a fuck!?" Toshi called back to him.

"You got a van Jiro, I suggest you put this city in your fucking rear view mirror," I told him as I walked away with Toshi.

We got back to the car and I lit up a cigarette. "So what now?" I asked him.

"Let's pay Jun a visit," he said lighting his own smoke, "If he's gotten to one of our guys then he'll try to get some more so we nip this in the fucking bud before it becomes a real problem."

I nodded, our business was in trouble so we needed to step in and protect it. While we drove we talked about other measures we would have to take to make sure that none of our other employees were pushing drugs alongside our bootlegs. If the rest of the Clan found out we'd look like chumps or worse they might think we were using our little hustle to move drugs for the Dragons. That was unacceptable, especially with Toshi trying to get made.

We stopped on 86th street and looked over at his apartment. "So do you know this guy? Do you think he's home?" I asked him.

"Didn't you hear Jiro? He's working from home, he's probably in here all day," Toshi said opening the car door and marching right for the front door, "and if he isn't home then we'll let him know we dropped by," he said kicking it right open. "Jun!" he called stepping in, " Jun you fat fuck are you in here!?"

I stepped in behind Toshi as we stepped into a hall and sure enough we spotted him standing up from a chair with four other guys already in there from him. I spotted a number of the drugs on the table along with fat stacks of lien. For a second I thought I recognized the four others with him. I noticed that they were armed and a look at the mace hanging from the hip of the biggest guy made me suddenly recognize all of them.

"Cardin!?" I said feeling an icy chill go down my spine. He was wearing a cheap grey shit instead of his usual combat attire or uniform that I was accustomed to seeing him in but the minute I looked into his blue eyes I could see that it really was him.

"Jauney boy!?" Cardin said with a predatory grin, "what brings you here?"

"You know this guy?" Toshi asked, turning to me with a raised eyebrow.

"We were at Beacon together," I said to him before looking back to Cardin and the rest of Team CRDL. "What are you doing here?"

"Business," Cardin said, simply stepping close and staring me down. "What are you doing here Jauney boy?"

I didn't understand how this could possibly be happening right now but I knew we needed to get the fuck out of here right now. Toshi and I were outnumbered and I knew from personal experience that Cardin and his friends were no pushovers.

Toshi spoke immediately, "Jun here has been dealing drugs on Clan turf! This ends now!"

I put a hand on Toshi's shoulder to try to calm the guy down before this turned into a fight we couldn't win. "Keep away from our people," I told Jun trying to lay it down in a reasonable fashion, "we know you've been selling to Jiro so we're here to put our foot down."

"Or else things will get ugly Jun!" Toshi cut in.

I wanted to choke the son of a bitch. I don't know if it was because he was possibly going to be joining the Clan or if he really didn't understand how bad this situation was but he wouldn't shut up.

"Ugly?" Cardin said, stepping between Toshi and Jun with his imposing figure. "Are you threatening my boss's associate?"

"Damn straight!" Toshi growled at him. "This is Junior's neighborhood and-."

Toshi never finished the sentence before Cardin punched him right in the stomach, making him keel over in pain.

"Fuck!" I said seeing the situation deteriorate before my very eyes. I reached for my snub nose revolver. It was my only weapon. I barely managed to pull the little revolver free before Cardin caught my wrist and punched me across the face. My aura shielded me from the blow but the force of it still sent me stumbling backwards and crashing into the wall.

"Look at this little peashooter!" Cardin said holding up my revolver. "Looks like Jauney boy here upgraded his arsenal," he laughed, throwing the pistol down to my feet and stepping forward as Russel came forward and sent Toshi down with a swift kick and Dove did the same. Poor Toshi, he had aura but it meant little against the three of them. Meanwhile Cardin was giving me a painful reminder of what my short time in Beacon had been like.

"I must say Jauney boy, I never expected you to be the kind of guy to be working for Junior," he laughed, taking his bulky mace up and sending me crashing into the drywall with a mighty swing. "I didn't think you had it in you to do this kind of work. I'm actually a little impressed Jauney boy."

"What are you doing here Cardin?" I asked him, picking up a lamp and desperately swinging it at him only for it to shatter harmlessly against his aura.

"Same thing as you," Cardin said, smashing his mace against me making the dryway against my back crumble, "Beacon booted me out so I found a line of work that could use my services. And by the look of things I'm a lot better at it than you are."

He kicked me right in the sternum and sent me right through the cheap flimsy wall. I crashed into a bedroom and scrambled through the door and moved around back into my living room. I spotted my gun on the floor and leapt and grabbed it. Before I could even raise it Cardin's foot stomped down and pinned my hand.

His mace came crashing down on my back again and again, the floor beneath me cracked as my aura flared to protect me and eventually gave out, shattering into specks of white light. The mace dropped from his hand and he picked me up and proceeded to punch the snot out of me until I heard my nose break with a wet crunch and blood gushed out.

He dropped me down as I tried to struggle and I broke the coffee table scattering the drugs and money all over the floor. He then proceeded to kick me again and again in the ribs. It was agony, I couldn't breathe and even though I clutched my gun I hardly was able to use it.

"Cardin!" I heard someone shout at him and the kicking stopped. I looked up to see that it had been Sky who had spoken.

"Dude," he said, laying a hand on his shoulder, "that's enough, Michail said we can't kill any of Junior's guys, he's had enough."

Michail. That fucking Atlesian piece of shit. I hadn't even seen the guy but just hearing this name sent my blood boiling. That sex trafficking drug dealing son of a bitch was why he was here. I almost wanted to try shooting him but I knew it would be helpless, Cardin would probably cave in my skull before I could get a second shot off and his aura was definitely close to full.

"And you're trashing my apartment," Jun said to him. Jun must have been pretty fucking dumb to think that he could still live here once news about his little drug dealing gig got around.

Cardin grunted but sighed before lifting me up and leaning in close. "You and your friend better leave our dealers the fuck alone Jauney boy," he snarled in my ear, "this isn't Beacon Jauney boy, there's no teachers or anyone to hold me back so if you even think about threatening our dealers again… well next time I'll put you through a tougher wall. Now get the fuck out of here!"

I stumbled away tucking the gun back into my hoster before I grabbed Toshi so we could stumble outside and back into his car. We were bloody messes, Toshi's face looked like mincemeat and looking into the mirror side view mirror I saw that I was just as bad if not worse. I was black and blue from Cardin's beating and my broken nose was making this weird little whistle noise as I breathed. Everything hurt as I moved.

We didn't say anything as he drove away. We felt like a bunch of chumps running away with our tails tucked between our legs for the hospital. Toshi and I barely spoke to each other and by the time we left the hospital with bandages on our noses and ribs along with ice packs to bring down the swelling we were pretty tired so Toshi decided to take me home. "You know Jun is going to go after our people even harder now right?" I asked him finally to break the silence between us.

"You think he'd dare?" Toshi asked him. "This is still Clan turf and he should be trying to keep his head down."

"I know Cardin," I explained to him. "He'll make sure that this brings me down."

"That's bad," Toshi said.

"Maybe we should ask for some help from the Clan," I explained, "if Jun is buying drugs from Michail then that's violating the treaty."

"And?" Toshi said, grabbing a cigarette as he drove and letting me light it for him. "This is our business, if I can't keep it under control without going to Tonen then I'm going to look like a chump to the Clan."

"The Clan exists to help each other," I said to him. "And these aren't just some punks without aura, they were in Beacon, they know how to fight."

"I don't know Jaune," Toshi sighed as he pulled up by my apartment, "I just don't know right now… let's just sleep on this."

I nodded and said my goodbyes before getting out of the car and going up to my apartment.

"What happened to you!?" Hana asked me as I passed her on the stairs.

"The life," I said to her simply.

"Do you need anything?" She asked clearly, understanding my answer just fine.

"Just rest," I told her, wanting my aura to return soon so it could begin healing all the bruises and cracked bones.

When I got into my room and locked the door the first thing I did was pull the couch out and take out the hidden scroll and call Ozpin. He didn't pick up so I just waited and tried to think about what to do about Cardin.

I wanted to get help before the situation got worse but Toshi was clearly worried about what it would do to his image. I bet the fact that he was being considered for entering the clan was why he was hesitant to invite our bosses to help. And as much as I wanted to get other people to help with this I realized that it could very well reflect on my reputation with the clan as well.

I looked at my snub nose revolver sitting in its holster on the table in front of me. I hadn't even fired a shot as Cardin knocked me around and I couldn't help but think what would have happened if I had.

Sure a single round wouldn't have gone through Cardin's aura. But if a second or third shot did then what? It wasn't like Goodwitch would tell us to stop the fight, the bullet after that could have easily killed him. Big as Cardin was without his aura a bullet was still a bullet. As much as I despised Cardin I didn't want to kill him or any of his teammates.

Eventually I managed to get a call through to Ozpin. "Mr. Arc… I wasn't expecting to hear from you again so soon. Has there been a development?"

"I'll say," I told him, "it's name is Cardin fucking Winchester, he and the rest of Team CRDL are working for those fucking Atlesians rats. And he just beat the shit out of me and my friend Toshi."

Ozpin was quiet for a second. "I see," he said simply.

"You see!? You fucking see!?" I said to him. "How the hell did this happen?"

"Calm down Mr. Arc, there's no need for vulgarities. Mr. Winchester and his team were expelled a little over a month ago. They played a cruel prank on Miss Nikos during a field trip, they unleashed a number of rapier wasps on her and she suffered from a severe allergic reaction. They had to get a bullhead to airlift her to the hospital."

I remembered Coco's story from just last night and clenched my fist to think that Cardin had been the one to do that to Pyrrha. "So you expelled him and his team for that," I said, finding the idea satisfying save for the fact that I was in pain now because of his expulsion. "And now he and his goons are hired muscle for the Atlesians."

"It happens," Ozpin said, "sometimes when students fail initiation or are expelled they try finding employment that can make use of their combat capabilities."

"Like hired muscle," I said sourly.

"Yes," Ozpin agreed, "that happens from time to time."

I remembered how O-Ushi told me that I wasn't the first washout from Beacon and that suddenly made sense to me. "So what should I do?" I asked him. "Cardin was protecting this guy who's been recruiting some of my guys to sell drugs from him. He's going after my business and he made me look like a pushover. And that's not helpful to my mission."

"I understand that Mr. Arc but I fail to see what I can do about it." He said, "I cannot step in."

"I understand that," I told him. "But what should I do? I could really use some advice right about now."

"I am afraid I don't have any answers for you Mr. Arc," Ozpin told me, "Can't you call on Junior and O-Ushi for help in these matters? Isn't that what these criminals claim this Clan is all about?"

"I can," I told him bitterly.

"Then do that," Ozpin instructed me, "I'll be in touch."

The call ended and I was left alone with only my thoughts towards the problem. Ozpin didn't understand what he was asking for. Yes the Clan takes care of it's people but if you want to move up then you can't just go crying to your boss over every little thing. And the last thing I wanted to do was go behind Toshi's back and make him look weak. I tried justifying that with my mission, if Toshi was allowed into the Clan then I would have another friend in a position of power. But honestly a part of me just didn't want to do wrong by him. He was a good friend and I wasn't going to betray that friendship.

And what's more I wanted to get even with Cardin. My pride had been wounded as well and I started to think about how I would make this right.

I put the scroll back and moved to my closet searching the corner where I could find it. A short sawed off pump shotgun that I had taken from one of the 24k Dragons the night I met Mel and Mil. I had put it in the cab and later stowed in away since I had no idea what I was going to do with the thing. But right now I knew that if I was going to handle Cardin and his team I was going to need something more than my little .38 snub nose.

I ejected the shells that had been in there since I first got it and looked at the little red plastic rounds considering my options. I wasn't going to kill anyone but I was going to make sure that the next time I faced off against Cardin that I was ready.

I remembered that night O-Ushi and her guys busted up that chop shop run by the dragons and I thought about Kaiu using rock salt in his shotgun rather effectively. I searched my wallet and found the card he had given me and called his indoor range.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Kaiu? This is Jaune… we uh met," I began.

"Oh I remember you," he said with a chuckle, "What can I do for a Gentleman such as yourself?"

"I got a problem and I need some firepower to deal with it," I explained to him.

"I see… how about you come on by first thing in the morning and I'll get you set up," he said with evident satisfaction in his voice.

"Thanks," I said to him before hanging up and looking through my contacts. I was going to get the Clan to help me, but I wasn't going to go to Junior or O-Ushi. I was going to get what friends I did have and make this right. I called Melanie and Miltia next knowing that they weren't the kind of girls to sit out a fight.

I didn't need any bosses to settle this. I had friends I could turn to. Dangerous friends.


	11. Chapter 10: Getting Even.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I’m a kind person, I’m kind to everyone, but if you are unkind to me, then kindness is not what you’ll remember me for.” ~ Al Capone.

Sure enough first thing in the morning I met Kaiu at his indoor range first with the sawed off shotgun I had looted from the Dragons. The place was closed so I parked back and he let me in through the back of his business.

“Morning Gentleman,” Kaiu greeted me as I entered in with the sawed off shotgun stuffed in a bag, “what you got there?”

I set the bag on the table and pulled out the old shotgun. “I was thinking I could get some shells for this from you,” I explained to him.

Kaiu looked at the shotgun I set on the table like I had thrown down some garbage and he picked it up to inspect. “Are you sure you don’t just want a new shotgun? What trashcan did you even get this from?” He asked me as he stripped apart the gun and inspected it piece by piece frowning at the spots of rust and the tape around the sawed off grip.

“I took it from a Dragon,” I explained to him.

“No wonder it’s a piece of shit. I can get you something better than this street trash if you want. What’s the occasion?” He asked me.

“I just need it to teach some guys a lesson,” I told him, “not kill anyone, just make them hurt.”

He looked up at me and motioned to his face, “Same guys that left you black and blue?” he asked me, indicating my bandaged nose and bruised face. My aura was starting to return and was working to heal my wounds but even after a full night sleep my face was still a mess.

“Yeah,” I said scratching the back of my neck, “Normally I’d just get a bat or a crowbar but you see these guys are packing aura so I need something that can take down their aura fast. Do you have anything like that rock salt that could maybe do the trick?”

He set the disassembled gun down one the table and tapped his finger. “Rock salt might do something to their aura but if you want something that’s gonna hit them hard… I think I might have something for you.” 

He left for a moment and returned with a box of shells. “A client of mine wanted these for a bank job but he got pinched before the heist and never collected,” he explained pulling out the green plastic shell and holding it up for me to see.

“What’s so special about them?” I asked him.

“They’re custom bean bag rounds,” he explained with a proud smile, “I filled them with gravity and lighting dust, they’ll hit like a brick and give those bastards a good shock. If that doesn’t send them the message they’ll feel like they got lead weights on their legs and they’ll just be begging for a beat down.”

“That sounds perfect,” I said to him, inspecting one of the shells, “how much?”

“I’ll give you the whole box for two hundred,” he explained to me.

“Two hundred!?” I asked, finding that to be way steeper than I was expecting to pay. “I could just get myself another gun for that.” 

“Hey man, these are top quality,” he assured me. “Plus dust prices are at an all time in case you haven’t noticed, two hundred is a bargain.”

I found that rather peculiar. Ozpin had sent me here because he suspected that the Clan was colluding with Torchwick on the dust robberies, but it seemed the shortage was even affecting Kaiu. I would have thought that one of the Clans arms dealers would have access to dust others didn’t, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.

“Alright,” I said, pulling out a roll of lien and counting out the bills. “You got anything else for me? I suppose I shouldn’t just have one trick up my sleeve when I visit these guys.” I asked him, thinking that going in with all my eggs in one basket wouldn’t be the smartest way to face Cardin and his team.

“I got some flashbangs I’ve been meaning to get rid of,” Kaiu explained to me, “you could blind and disorient these guys before you start blasting them with those shells.”

“How much?” I asked him again, liking the idea.

“These aren't exactly the easiest things to get a hold of,” he explained to me, “take two of them for another hundred and I’ll throw in a baton, you can beat the shit out of them with that.” He pulled one of the weapons out and snapped his wrist letting the telescoping club extend out for me to see. “Easier to carry around than a bat or a tire iron.”

I counted out the bills. “How about an extra fifty lien and I get some practice on your range?” I explained to him, “I haven’t exactly used that gun or any gun before.”

“Deal!” he said with a satisfied grin.

We shook hands and I handed over the cash. He helped show me how to operate the shotgun as well as my revolver and proceeded to let me practice till my heart was content and my wrists were sore. He had me practice reloading in a timely manner and even timed me as I fired on multiple targets.

I wasn’t going to win any shooting competitions but in a few hours I was more confident and comfortable with the guns and I was at least fluid with reloading them. He even taught me a few dry fire exercises I could practice at home to keep what skills I did acquire polished. After that day I started making weekly visits to Kaiu’s range.

I said goodbye to Kaiu as he started opening the range up and I stowed away the shotgun and flashbang in my car as I went to get a late breakfast.

I walked into a diner I had chosen for a meet up and waved to the waiter who I had become accustomed to seeing during my weekly collections. I asked him for an order of pancakes and some coffee and paid him. At the corner booth at the end I spotted Melanie and Miltia waiting for me already having ordered their food.

“Hey,” I greeted them approaching the booth, “thank you for coming.”

“Woah… like please tell me that the other guy is in a hospital or a grave,” Miltia said looking at my bruised up face.

I scratched the back of my head as I scooted into the booth next to her. “That's uh… why I’m here,” I explained, “the guys that did this to me have been trying to use my bootleg sellers to move drugs for the Altesians, they roughed me and Toshi up bad yesterday.”

“You should tell O-Ushi,” Melanie said, “she’ll help you straighten them out, probably with a few strikes of her hammer but they’ll get the message.”

“I don’t want Toshi and I to look like a couple of pushovers,” I explained to them, “that’s why I’m asking for your help to deal with the muscle,” I explained to them, “These guys that thrashed us up… I knew them back at Beacon, they’re tough and they had us completely outnumbered.”

“Do you know where to find these guys?” Miltia asked me.

“I know where the guy who'd been giving my employees the drugs was, he might still be there,” I told them, quietly as the waiter brought me my pancakes and coffee. “I’m pretty sure I can get him to call them for help.”

“Well I’m sold,” Melanie said, she picked up a piece of bacon from my plate and smiled at me, “I can’t just let a pack of drug dealing bastards rough up one of my boy toys and get away with it.”

“Thanks,” I said with a blush and turned to Miltia, “what about you Mil?” 

She shrugged noncommittally, “what’s in it for me?” 

“Well… what do you want?” I asked her.

“Ah! Good thinking Militia!” Melanie said with a greedy smirk. “How about dinner, at Georgetti’s!”

“Really? You want a date?” I asked them.

“An expensive date!” Miltia giggled maliciously, “we’ll also hit up a nightclub and you’re going to pay for our drinks and dance your ass off with us.”

I should have known that this wasn’t going to be free. But a full night out with the twins wasn’t exactly what I had expected. It'd be fun, even if they were certainly going to drain my wallet dry.   
“Deal,” I told them, cutting into my pancakes.

We ate breakfast together with a little small talk before laying down a heft tip and leaving. I called Toshi as we went out to the car together ready to put my plan into play.

“Hey man, what’s up?” He asked when he picked up.

“My aura is back and the worst of it is already patched up. How are you holding up?” I asked him.

“Still healing,” he told me bitterly. 

“I’m going to deal with Cardin and Jun,” I explained to him.

“Dude… we just got thrashed up yesterday,” he told me, clearly worried that I was going to have another more serious trip to the hospital.

“And my aura is back,” I explained to him, “and I got some extra muscle with me, I’m going to take care of this.”

“I said I didn’t want to get our bosses involved, we need to take care of ourselves!” He protested as I climbed into the driver seat with the twins settling into the passenger side like they did.

“No bosses,” I told him, “just friends and some extra firepower I got from Kaiu, the clan takes care of their own right?”

I heard him release a sigh of relief into his scroll, “don’t get hurt man,” he told me.

“I won’t,” I said to him confidently, “leave it to me, and get better.”

“Good luck,” he said to me before hanging up.

“How’s Toshi?” Miltia asked me.

“He’s not doing so hot,” I explained to them, “he got it a lot worse than I did, I just had to deal with one guy knocking me around, he had three.”

“So it’s just the three of us?” Melanie asked me.

“Yup,” I told them, pulling out of the parking lot and driving for Jun’s place.

“So this Cardin asshole was at Beacon with you?” Miltia asked me watching as the neighbor passed by out the window.

I sighed, “Yeah… he gave me a real hard time.”

Melanie giggled, “oh… so this is a little personal?”

I shrugged, “Maybe a little,” I admitted, “but it’s business first.”

I parked a little ways from Jun’s place so no one would see my conspicuous looking car pulling up and I pulled the bag with the shotgun from my trunk just in case I found Cardin there with Jun like last time and walked the last block to his place hoping that Jun really was stupid enough to still be there.

I kicked down the door to Jun’s apartment and walked right into his place. Sure enough the idiot was still sitting in his busted up living room in his chair playing some video games on this television.

“Shit!” Jun cursed scrambling for the window to escape but I caught him by the collar of his shirt and threw him to the ground. 

I punched him several times in the face again and again. “You should have left when you had the fucking chance,” I said bloodying his nose before picking him up and throwing him against the wall where I pinned him.

“Cardin said-,” Jun sputtered only for my fist to interrupt him.

“Cardin isn’t here!” I growled at him, “he can’t protect you right now! And if you want to see tomorrow you’re going to listen to me!”

I jabbed a fist into his stomach and made him double over in pain. “You’re going to call him and his team here,” I told him, “right now!”

Jun’s eyes went wide as he realized what I was asking him to do. He looked past me to the twins who were admiring my handiwork and realized that I was asking him to lure Cardin and his team into a trap.

“No!” he cried, “If I do that… Michail will kill me!”

I drew my .38 revolver and whipped him across the face with it before pressing the muzzle against his forehead. “What the fuck do you think I’m going to do with you?” I bluffed, pulling the hammer back for emphasis. I wasn’t going to kill him but I figured a gun to the head would be the best way to get through whatever fear he had of Michail or the Atlesians.

“I got his scroll right here,” Miltia said to me tossing it in my direction to catch. I took it and held it up for Jun. “Call him… make up some reason for him and his team to get down here,” I instructed him, “and don’t even think about trying to warn him.”

Jun was a sputtering hyperventilating mess as he took his scroll. There was no way he could call Cardin like this, a deaf person would have heard him panicking. “Take a deep breath and count to ten,” I told him, pulling the gun away so he could take a moment to relax. If he didn’t I just knew Cardin would see right through the call so I gave him several minutes to calm the hell down before making the call.

I stared him down and kept the gun at the ready while he called Cardin. “Make it convincing, I want all his guys to show up.”

He put the scroll to his ear and I listened to it ring. “Hey Cardin… I’m getting ready to move my operation but I think Junior’s guys are onto me, those guys from yesterday probably blabbed so I’m a little paranoid. Could you and your friends come down and see that nothing happens at the moment?”

There was a pause and Jun nodded. “Yeah I’ll pay you for your time… nothing has happened yet but I saw this one car pass buy a few too many times… Alright… thanks I’ll hang tight.”

The call ended and he dropped the scroll. Jun looked like he wanted to collapse. “He said that he’ll be here in twenty minutes with all his guys,” he said, handing the scroll back to me.

I turned to the twins. “What should we do with this guy?” I asked the twins since they held a higher rank and more authority than me, “he’s selling on Junior’s turf.”

Melanie looked Jun up and down, “What do you think Miltia? I think he could send a good message for the other dealers not to sell in Junior’s neighborhood. Maybe we just bend Junior’s rules a little bit today.”

“You have a point Melanie… but that sounds like a little too much work,” she said stepping forward and placing her claws beneath his chin. “And really messy, maybe we could just remove a few things and let him walk around the neighborhood without a nose or a hand. We can certainly take his balls.”

“P-please,” Jun whimpered as one Miltia’s claws poked the thin flesh of his throat releasing a small drop of blood to stream a red line down his neck.

“What does the Gentleman here think?” Melanie asked me, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms under her breasts. “It was your business he was moving in on, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be the one to decide his fate.”

I considered my answer. Letting a guy get dismembered in front of me was not how I wanted things to go down, but I couldn’t appear weak to them. “How about we let him skip town and never come back?” I suggested to the girls.

“Y-yeah!” Jun agreed nervously, “I’ll leave Vale… you won’t ever see me again.”

“If I do,” I told him with a wave of my revolver. “Then you’re going to end up in the trunk of my car!”

Jun nodded frantically, clearly understanding my threat very well.

Melanie shrugged having no issue with the arrangement, “Fine, you’re lucky this Gent here has a sense of mercy… now get the fuck out of here!”

Jun stepped away from the wall and looked around at his apartment nervously. I saw his eyes go to his stash.

“What the fuck are you waiting for!?” I barked at him.

“I just need to grab…” He trailed off looking nervous.

“Your drugs!?” I asked him angrily. “Didn’t you hear the lady!? Get the fuck out of here!”

Jun sprinted out and away before I could even kick him. He sprinted out the door with only the clothes on his back. I never saw him again. I had just run a guy out of home and town, but it was better than letting Melanie and Militia dice him up into little pieces. 

“Are you sure that was the wise call?” Miltia asked me.

I shrugged pocketing Jun’s scroll, “If he shows up then you can make as much of an example as you want out of him,” I said. “Besides I’m pretty sure Michail won’t forgive him for losing his drugs. He’d have to be both really brave and stupid to show back up in Vale.”

“Well we know he’s stupid,” Melanie said, “but alright… let’s wait for this Cardin guy to show up.”

I pulled out the shotgun and loaded in Kaiu’s special bean bag shells, and I prepared the flashbangs for them as well. We stepped into a coat closet to hide and waited for them to arrive.

“You know when we agreed to help you get these guys I wasn’t expecting to hide in a closet waiting for these guys to show,” Miltia complained, “it fucking smells in here.”

“Good,” I said to her, not exactly comfortable myself but I had little pity for the twins having to squeeze themselves in here with me. “I want to get my money’s worth from you two.”

Melanie groaned, “Oh come on Jaune! You’re getting a date with the two of us out of this!”

“Yup!” I deadpanned, “And I know the two of you are going to bleed my wallet for everything it’s worth.”

“You bet I will now,” Miltia grumbled, “ugh… this closet stinks. Did that bastard keep his farts in here?”

“Quiet!” I hissed at the two of them “I think I hear them.”

Sure enough I heard the front door swing open and the fall of footsteps. “Jun?” I heard Cardin call into the house, “Are you in here?”

I held my breath and peeked out through the crack in the door watching as Cardin and his team walked right by calling for Jun. “Do you think something happened to him?” Sky asked Cardin as they settled around in the living room.

“This place doesn’t look anymore fucked up than it did yesterday,” Russel said looking at the damage that remained from yesterday’s fight, “you think there would be signs if something did happen?”

I yanked the pin on the flashbang and released the safety lever before tossing it right out and into the living room and slamming the closet door before it could go off.

“What the?” I heard Cardin exclaim before the little stun grenade detonated with an ear piercing pop. 

I saw the flash come through the bottom crack of the door and even though I was on the other side of the door the sound made my ears ring. I burst out of the closet and raised the sawed-off shotgun right for Cardin.

The sawed off roared and I watched as Cardin’s aura flared up to shield him. The bean bag burst apart to release the dust. I watched as a faint black glow outlined Cardin to show that the gravity dust was weighing him down and the electric glittered and sparked with yellow flashes and arcs of lighting.

I worked the pump and ejected the shell as I moved to my second target. I pulled the trigger and shot Dove next making him fall as the dust electrocuted him and weighed him down to the floor. Pump, aim, shoot. Pump, aim, shoot. Just like I had practiced hours earlier on Kaiu’s indoor range. 

By the time I had managed to shoot each and every one of them Cardin was picking himself up and he glared right at me. He charged right at me with his mace in hand lumbering like a drunk urasi. I shot him a second time before he could even get close enough to swing his weapon at me.

The twins moved past me and attacked Cardin together. Miltia slashed at him as Melanie flipped a kick right into his chin. Cardin tried swinging his mace at them. He moved with all the speed and grace of a tortoise. His strike tore a chunk of drywall off as he put his back to me. He tried all he could to get a strike in but the twins moved as if they were a single graceful entity.

I opened the chamber of my empty shogun and dropped a shell into the gate. I closed, aimed, and fired hitting Cardin square in the back. 

“Get the others!” I told the twins seeing that the three other members of CRDL were recovering and getting ready to fight.

“Right!,” they said in unison, moving together passing by Cardin to get to his friends. Mel whipped around and kicked Russel across the face as Mil caught Dove’s blade in her claws and raked a slash across his chest. 

Cardin turned to me and lunged with all his strength to give a wide desperate swing in my direction. But it was slow and clumsy and I ducked the swing as I dropped another shell into the shogun. The mace crashed into the wall leaving a hole and as Cardin tried wrenching it free I fired point blank at him.

The force of the shot so close sent him reeling back. The hilt of his weapon slipped out of his fingers and I pressed my advantage. The accumulated power of the gravity dust as well as the electric shocks sent in sprawling. I reached for the collapsible baton and extended in with a flick of my wrist before mercilessly beating the living daylights out of him.

The steel club rose and fell again and again as I smashed it against his aura. I’ll admit that after all the grief Cardin had given me I was enjoying this immensely. I thought about all the times he had bullied me at Beacon, the time he stuffed me in a rocket powered locker and sent it flying, how he had apparently hurt Pyrrha after I had left. But mostly I thought about the people that Cardin was working with and how much I despised them. He was working for Michail and that was all the justification I needed to hurt him.

His aura broke. Shattering into light I continued my assault on his unshielded face. The club smashed his nose, it chipped a tooth, it left marks and bruises. Cardin roared in agony. The gravity dust wore off and he finally managed to push me off of him with all his strength. I stumbled back gracelessly from the push as he tried to raise himself up and grab for his mace. 

But it was too late. I was still running full on my aura and he was already out. I lunged for Cardin as he grabbed his mace and snapped the baton across his wrist breaking it. He growled in pain and tried punching me, only for his naked fist to smash against my aura harming him more than me. I cracked him in the knee cap and sent him down to see Russel moving in to help his partner. 

I blocked several of his dagger swings and even managed to get a few solid swings in before Melanie rushed to deliver a roundhouse kick right to him and knocked him right into the wall. He hit the wall and I dropped my club to bring the shotgun back up. I ejected the spent shell still in the chamber and dropped a fresh one in. I hit Russel right in the sternum and blasted away his aura leaving him to spasm from the electric shocks and pulled to the ground from the gravity dust. 

Dove tried coming at me with his sword but Melanie was ready by my side. Her shapely leg and bladed heel came up to deflect the sword thrust away as I readied another shell and blasted him to the ground. Melanie dropped her leg, finishing him off as I watched Miltia catch Sky’s halberd in her claws and send him flying before lashing out with a flurry of slashes. 

It was over. The fight had ended and I barely had a scratch on me. Cardin on the other hand was bleeding on the floor groaning in pain. He was trying to crawl to his friends and he looked up defiantly at me.

“Get up!” I hissed to him grabbing him by his shirt collar, “get the fuck up you piece of shit!” I forced him into the living room with the others kicking him to move and waving the sawed off around to make my point. 

“Fuck you!” Cardin cursed earning a strike from the grip of my shotgun.

“You know, I have half a mind to take Nora’s advice and break your legs right now Cardin,” I said to him, putting the muzzle of the shotgun against his kneecap. I had no idea what kind of damage a beanbag would do at such a close range but I was sure it would be devastating on his leg. 

“We won’t stop you,” Melanie said with a sadistic smirk.

Cardin looked away from me too proud to admit defeat but clearly understanding that he had been beaten in this fight. The tables had turned, he was now at my mercy.

I lit a cigarette to calm down and took a seat in Jun’s chair with the shogun laying across my lap. “What am I going to do with you Cardin?” I asked looking at the rest of his team, “What am I going to do with any of you?’

“You were threatening one of Michail’s dealers,” Cardin said to me with a noncommittal shrug, “you’re working for Junior so you clearly know how this is Jaune. It’s business.”

“Business!” I spat pointing the sawed off in his direction. “Junior doesn't push poison on the streets, Cardin! He doesn't kidnap women to be sold! If that’s business to you then maybe I should have used buckshot instead of beanbags!”

I saw Cardin’s eyes go wide the minute I mentioned his boss selling women. All of them seemed to be more than a little shocked at me mentioning it.

“We don’t know anything about that!” Russel said, being the first to speak up. “We’ve only been helping protect his drug dealers!”

“We’re just muscle,” Cardin told me, looking me in my eyes, “I knew about the drugs sure but I had no idea about… that other stuff. Michail doesn’t trust us with much, he just pays us to keep the dealers in line.”

He didn’t sound like a liar, and the look in his eyes was more than convincing. “He almost got Velvet,” I growled angrily to him, “if I hadn’t intervened then I don’t know where she would be right now.”

“I didn’t know anything about that!” Cardin roared back at me.

“We had no clue,” Sky assured me.

I sighed and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I’d like to have a word with them in private,” I said to the twins.

“Are you sure?” Miltia asked me looking over the four of them.

“They’re not going anywhere,” I said waving my shotgun for emphasis. “We’re going to reminisce about Beacon a little, have some guy talk.”

Melanie gave them a look before shrugging, “Whatever, fire away if you need us.”

They both turned and left with the rest of CRDL looking at them go. “I see your habit of befriending interesting girls hasn’t changed,” Cardin commented as they closed the door behind them leaving the five of us all alone.

“Yeah well… being a friendly guy certainly helps me make friends,” I said to him leaning forward. “How did the four of you end up working for the Atlesians?” 

“How did you end up working for Junior?” Cardin said, trying to answer my question with another question.

“I got a cab driving job from one of his bosses,” I explained to him, “and then one thing led to another.” I wasn’t going to tell Jaune that I was actually spying on the Clan for Ozpin.

Cardin sighed listening to me. “I never took you as the type to do this kind of work Jaune… I’m surprised you can stomach it to be honest.”

“Answer the question,” I told Cardin, finished with the roundabout he was giving me.

He looked away with evident shame on my face. “I needed the money,” Cardin told me plainly.

“He’s in debt,” Sky told me.

“Dude!” Russel said, elbowing his comrade.

Cardin only looked more embarrassed to have the truth bared like that. 

“In debt to who?” I asked him.

Cardin was stone silent. He looked as stoic as a statue and I could see that he was deeply embarrassed by this.

“Who!?” I asked again.

“Some loan shark,” Cardin admitted bitterly, “he heard I went to Beacon so he got me working as muscle for Michail.”

“What about the rest of you?” I asked them.

“We needed work,” Dove admitted with a shrug, “and we wanted to help out Cardin. Beacon or not he’s still our leader.”

I took a long draw off my cigarette and considered them. “What are you in debt for?” I asked Cardin.

“Does it matter?” Cardin retored bitterly. 

“I suppose not,” I admitted with a shrug, “how much do you owe?”

“Why does that fucking matter!?” Cardin spat.

“How much?” I pressed.

“Seventy five grand,” Cardin quietly said after a long quiet pause.

“Seventy five?” I exclaimed in disbelief. I had no idea what Cardin could have needed that much money for but owning a loan shark money like that was explained why he was so desperate. People could end up losing their knee caps for less.

I considered my options as I finished my cigarette. I still hated Cardin, and while I hardly knew the rest of his teammates I certainly had plenty of resentment for all of them and the bullying they had done. Beacon felt like a long time ago but the wounds from their bullying were more than a little raw. 

I snubbed out my cigarette and stood up from the chair. “Alright… I’m going to give the four of you two options,” I explained to them, “I can do with you what I did to Jun, leave town and don’t let me ever fuckings see you ever again. And trust me if anything happens to me the twins will make sure that justice is served. They’re Junior’s top enforcers so I wouldn’t suggest fucking with them.”

“And the other option?” Cardin asked me.

“I’ll settle your debt Cardin,” I told him, “you’ll work for me.”

Cardin snarled, “so you can nickel and dime me like Michail!? Fuck that!” 

“I’m not going to nickel and dime you,” I promised Cardin, “I got money, I’ll pay your whole debt off at once.” Seventy five thousand lien was certainly going to break the bank for me. I was certainly going to have to get some more cash if I was going to cover that. Not to mention I promised the twins an expensive date for all of this.

He took a long time to consider me. “What then?” he asked me.

“You help me straighten out my business,” I said, “you help me kick the 24k Dragons and the other dealing in the neighborhood to the curb. As for the rest of you… I bet Michail isn’t the generous type so whatever he’s paying you I’ll beat it.”

They looked at each other clearly surprised. “You’re offering us a job?” Dove asked, voicing his disbelief. 

“I am,” I said to them. “You guys said it yourselves you’re just hired muscle, so I’m going to give you all a chance to be my hired muscle. You don’t owe that son of a bitch Michail anything.”

I looked at Cardin as his bruised and bloody face twisted in contemplation. Getting beaten in front of his own friends and having his assailant offer to settle his debts and give his friends a job was certainly a wound to his pride. But this wasn’t Beacon, pride alone wouldn’t get him much here and he knew that next time I really would break his legs or worse.

I offered Cardin my hand so he could pull himself up off the floor.

“Deal,” he said, taking my offered hand. I helped pull him up and we shook to seal the deal.

“But if I find out that any of you had a damn thing to do with Michail trafficking flesh I’ll fucking kill you all,” I said making my point very clear. I meant every word of that, the drugs was one thing but trafficking people was something I would never be able to tolerate. 

Cardin gave me a hard look in the eye and nodded. “Fair enough” he said, releasing my hand. I was sure then that they were telling me the truth.

The rest of them pulled themselves up off the floor. “I’ll take the job,” Russel said, “Michail has been paying us jack shit anyways.”

“I don’t want to work for some sex trafficking asshole,” Sky agreed, “count me in.”

“Fuck it,” Dove said, “if you guys are in then what choice do I have?”

“Go get cleaned up,” I said to them, “I’ll call you all soon so we can get to work.”

“Wait,” Cardin said, putting his massive hand on my shoulder and stopping me.

“What?” I asked him, shrugging his hand off of me and turning to look at him once more.

“Jaune… if you want to deal with the 24k Dragons then I think I know who you should talk to,” he explained to me seriously. “I think I know someone who can help you put an end to all of this, I can help you really screw Michail over.”

I raised an eyebrow at him as I considered his words, “What are you talking about Cardin?” I asked him.

“Michail tried to get me to wack one of Ryu’s lieutenants,” Cardin explained to me. “He has apparently been speaking out against the drug trade so Michail and Ryu want him rubbed out of the picture. But this guy is well respected in the gang so they want him to be taken care of quietly.”

“You mean there’s a dissenter in the Dragons?” I asked him, seeing the opportunity unfolding before me. “You got a name for me?”

Cardin nodded to me. “Exactly, they’re afraid of this guy and if I’m going to be helping you screw over Michail then I have no choice but to go all in.”

“Does this guy have a name?” I asked him.

“Plenty within the 24k Dragons call him gold fist or Kin No Ken, but his real name is Kenzo,” he told me, crossing his arms.

I remembered that name and thought back to the guy in that chop shop who sent me flying and kicked my ass. I remembered the regret he had displayed in fighting O-Ushi and the respect he tried to still give her despite being at odds. I put my arm around Cardin’s shoulder as we left Jun’s apartment together. “Tell me more,” I told him.


	12. Chapter 11: Nefarious Plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “ Goodfellas don't sue Goodfellas....Goodfellas kill Goodfellas." ~ Salvatore Profaci

“Are you sure about this Mr. Arc?” Ozpin asked over the scroll. “You’re risking a lot to trust Mr. Winchester and his friends.”

“It’s a gamble I know,” I explained to Ozpin counting out the envelope of cash I had with the majority of my earnings. “Plus I’m putting a lot of money down just on the off chance it can secure his loyalty.”

“Do you even have that kind of money?” Ozpin asked me.

“I got it,” I said bitterly. “You know that fancy car I took from that chop shop? I managed to sell it to Tonen for three times the amount Cardin owes.” That had been tough to do, I loved that car and trading it for a simple sedan was a huge letdown. But I needed the money and this was a lot more important than a fancy car. Thankfully Tonen told me that lining up a buyer for a ride like that would take awhile so I probably had a chance to buy it back. I was grateful to him for that, I really liked that car.

“Well I trust his cooperation will be far more valuable than some car,” Ozpin said as if he could tell that I was having second thoughts about giving Cardin so much money. At least it gave me enough to also pay off the rest of CRDL for a while. I just needed enough cash to last until I could figure out Michail’s problem. After that I had no idea what I would do with Cardin and his friends.

“How did Cardin even manage to get that kind of debt anyways?” I asked him voicing my concerns as I counted out the rest of my money so I could also pay the rest of CRDL when the time came. There was no way Cardin could just end up owing a loan shark that much money by accident. And considering he and his team actually managed to get into Beacon the right way I figured that it couldn’t be any normal loan shark threatening him.

“I have no idea,” Ozpin told me. “But whatever caused him to need that kind of money from a loan shark certainly has worked in your favor.”

“Let’s hope so,” I said, finished with my counting. “He could have already told Michail everything already and I’m walking into a trap. Cardin could just rob my corpse afterwards.”

“You said it yourself, it’s a gamble,” Ozpin coldly reminded me.

“Yeah yeah,” I said, hating that my own words were being tossed back my way. “But I’ve already cast the dice so I don’t really have much choice but to see what comes up. But if it goes wrong you know who to go looking for.”  
“Do you really think Michail would risk dragging the Prince into a war over this?” Ozpin asked me. “You might only be an associate with the Clan Mr. Arc but it’s been very clear to this point that both sides have avoided murder in fear it could lead to somthing worse.”

“I have no idea,” I admitted to him. “War seems inevitable as far as the Clan is concerned, and most seem to think that the Atlesians want it to lead to it. They’re probably just trying to test the waters and see what our first move is going to be.”

“What would prevent it from escalating to such extremes?” Ozpin asked me.

“I honestly don’t know,” I admitted to him. “But the Atlesians seem to have the advantage at the moment, so unless somebody puts them on the back foot I don’t see their disposition changing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ozpin said. “For now just be weary with Mr. Winchester and keep your course.”

Keep my course. He always told me that, like it was supposed to be some special motivator for this mission. I had no idea what my course was. I was going about this on the seat of my pants, I didn’t have any course plotted. I just knew that I was supposed to get in on the dust racket and I had no idea how I was supposed to even get there. No one I knew in the Clan was even involved in that as far as I knew.

I took my new less fashy car to the same diner I had met the twins at. Looking through the window I saw that Cardin had indeed shown up and was sitting in one of the booths eating a burger. I parked and moved inside giving a wave to the waiter and ordering a burger of my own before I sat down across from him.

“Where’s the rest of your team?” I asked him. 

Cardin shrugged, “It’s just the two of us, they don’t need to be here for this.” He said setting his burger down and looking at me. His face was still black and blue from the beating while mine had actually mostly healed. How the tables had turned. I was certainly a bit proud to see that my handyworks was still written all over his face.

I reached into my coat and pulled out the stack of bills. “Count it,” I told him, “it’s all there.”

Cardin looked at the stack of hundred lien bills like it was diseased. “If I help you take care of the 24k Dragons and Michail’s dealers… then we’re square? I don’t owe you anything else for this money?”

“That’s right,” I told Cardin, sliding the stack closer to him. “There’s no strings attached to this money save what you’ve agreed to. After that we don’t have to work together anymore. You can go your separate way so long as you never cross me again.”

Cardin sighed but picked up the stack to flip through the bills before tucking in away. I wanted to ask him why he needed so much money but I was sure that he wasn’t going to say and it didn’t matter. 

My food arrived and I took a few savory bites of my burger before I turned my attention back to him. “So… Michail asked you to kill Kenzo,” I said to him, trying to break the ice a little.

Cardin nodded as he chewed his food. “Ryu may be the head honcho of the 24k Dragons but Kenzo apparently has a lot of support within the gang,” he explained after swallowing,.“He’s loyal to the gang first and foremost but he’s had no problem voicing his displeasure about the drugs or going against Junior and the Clan. Michail and Ryu are worried that too many members are listening to him but killing him themselves would only look bad. So he wanted me to make him disappear, or make it look like Junior’s guys did it.”

I nodded as I picked up one of my fries and dipped it in ketchup, “So… have you carried out hits for Michail before?” I asked him.

Cardin looked up and met my eyes. “No,” he said firmly, “I’ve muscled plenty of people around Jaune but I have never killed anyone. I turned Michail’s offer down… I knew if I took that kind of money then he would always have his hooks in me. He’d own me.”

I believed him. Cardin was many things, a thug, a bully, but I didn’t think he was a murderer. Not a cold blooded one at least. What’s more it seemed that he really was desperate to get out from under Michail’s thumb. And when you kill for someone their grip on you only tightens.

“Alright… I believe you, but that means I should probably meet with Kenzo soon before he gets someone else to shoot him in the back of his head. Can you set that up?” I asked him.

“I already did,” Cardin told me. “I got his scroll number from a Dragon and asked him to meet this afternoon.”

“That’s good thanks,” I said, nibbling on a few fries. At least Cardin was on top of things so far. 

Talking with Cardin like this was strange. My anger towards him had hardly vanished with what had happened, I was only keeping it in check. A big part of me still wanted to kick him to the curb but I needed Cardin and his team if I was going to get Toshi and I’s business back under control and hopefully put this territory dispute to rest.

“I’m uh… I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time at Beacon,” Cardin said suddenly looking down at his plate of fries.

“Uh… yeah,” I said awkwardly, not really sure what I should say to him. It wasn’t like it was water under the bridge to me. I was surprised that he was actually apologizing, it was sudden for me.

“Your team… they really miss you,” he said to me, a little more familiar that I was comfortable with.

“Let’s not talk about that,” I told him flatly. I didn’t want to reminisce about Beacon, and certainly not with Cardin of all people. By now I had officially spent more time pretending to be a gangster than I had pretending to be a huntsman in training. And it wasn’t even the end of the first semester.I needed to keep my mind on my objectives, thoughts about Beacon would only distract me.

“Alright,” Cardin agreed, laying down the money for his meal. 

I ate the rest of my food with silence hanging between us and we left together. Going out to the new sedan I had gotten from Tonen.

“Nice car,” Cardin complimented as he settled into the passenger seat.

“Don’t!” I told him firmly.

“What… I’m saying it’s a nice car,” he said confused by my frustration. 

“This is nothing to my previous car,” I explained, trying not to direct that frustration towards him. 

“What happened to it?” Cardin asked me.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I told him bitterly.

“Alright,” Cardin said, returning us to an air of awkward silence.

“Where are we meeting Kenzo?” I asked him as I pulled out onto the street.

“Bella Beach,” he told me. “It’s just outside of town take highway thirty two west.”

“The beach?” I asked, finding it to be a rather strange choice of meeting place. I was hardly dressed for the beach.

Cardin shrugged at me, “It was Kenzo’s idea,” he said. “It kind of makes sense, open space that you can see people coming from, and it’s not like there’s a ton of wiseguys hanging around in their swim trunks to recognize us.”

“Alright, to the beach it is.” I said, turning to get onto the highway. “Does Michail know anything about what’s transpired between us?” I asked him.

Cardin shook his head, “No, I’m honestly not sure what he’ll do when he learns I’m changing employers. I am keeping this all a secret from him until I know what we are next move is going to be.”

I nodded, business was at least one thing I could talk to Cardin about without feeling awkward or angry. “I don’t know what he’ll do either so keep it a secret from him at the moment, it might come in handy if he thinks you’re still loyal to him.”

“Ok, but I can’t avoid him for very long. What should I do in the meantime when he wants me to do jobs for him?” He asked me.

“I suppose for now keep doing them, you and your team,” I explained to him. “And make sure they all know to keep this arrangement on the down low.”

“They already know,” Cardin assured me.

I nodded trusting that he had already talked to his team about keeping their mouths shut. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little matchbook I had taken from the one guy that tried to nab Velvet at Junior’s Club. “Do you know anything about this?” I asked him, handing it over.

“The Caboose?” Cardin asked me. “Yeah I know it, it’s a bar that Michail and his guys frequent, it’s close to the rail yard. I uh… used to pick up some of the drugs there to hand out to the dealers.”

“I’m wondering if maybe it also has something to do with his human trafficking operation,” I explained, hopeful that I might be able to find something out about it and maybe even do something about it.

“I don’t know,” Cardin admitted to me. “But I might be able to dig a little and find something out. I wouldn’t mind taking a swing at that business.”

“Just be careful,” I instructed him. “Don’t give Michail any reason to be suspicious of you or your team.”

“I will… I’ll tell the guys to keep their ears to the ground as well,” Cardin promised me.

“Are you sure they can do that without raising an alarm?” I asked him, having no idea what his team was really capable of handling. All I had seen of CRDL was them fighting but this wasn’t Beacon. This required finesse.

“They can handle it,” he assured me. “They’re smarter than they look, and they weren’t exactly thrilled to learn that Michail was selling slaves. They want to do something about it.” 

“Just tell them to be careful,” I said, pleased that we were seeming to make some progress. 

We left Vale in my rearview mirror as we approached the countryside as we rode alongside the sunny coast. After spending so long in the city it was actually a strange and refreshing change of scenery to be away from all the steel and concrete. I’d never actually taken a drive through the countryside before. It was nice, despite the awkward atmosphere between Cardin and I.

I spotted the pull off for Bella beach and I parked seeing that plenty of people were here taking advantage of the warm summer day. “I should come back here sometime,” I mused aloud watching as a group of kids around my age ran down the sandy path for the beach, “I bet Mel and Mil would love to spend a day at the beach.”

“The twins?” Cardin asked me.

“Yeah,” I said to him walking down the sandy path looking a little out of place to be wearing a suit on a beach but no one seemed to stare or even care as we walked around watching as the waves crashed up and down the shore.

We spotted Kenzo not very far off sitting on a driftwood log and he looked right at us. He wasn’t wearing his 24k Dragons jacket, just some jeans and a tank top that showed off his gold dragon tattoos on his arms. 

He took off his sunglasses as we got close to sit down next to him. “What is this about Cardin?” He asked looking over at me, “and why is this wiseguy here?”

“Ryu and Michail asked me to kill you,” Cardin answered him flatly.

Kenzo blinked. “!hy didn’t you take the offer?” He asked Cardin. You need to understand that in this life your murderers come with smiles. They don’t announce their intentions to kill you. They wait until your back is turned before they put a knife in it. If Cardin had intended to kill Kenzo then he wouldn’t have told him about the hit, he would have just killed him.

“I got a better offer,” Cardin explained to him. “That’s why he’s here.”

I offered Kenzo my hand, “My name’s Jaune,” I said introducing myself, “it’s good to actually meet you properly for a change.”

“You two have met before?” Cardin asked us.

“Briefly,” Kenzo said, shaking my hand with a firm and respectable grip. “You’re the one they’ve been calling Gentleman.”

“Gentleman?” Cardin said looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

“It’s a long story,” I told Cardin sitting back down next to Kenzo. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it as I watched the waves and the beach goers enjoying themselves in the water and on the sand.

“So tell me about this better offer you found Cardin,” Kenzo said, taking out his own pack of smokes and letting me light it for him.

“Jaune settled a debt for me,” he explained to Kenzo. 

“After the twins and I beat some sense into him and his boys,” I added in.

“Yes,” Cardin admitted with a sigh, “and now I’m working for Jaune here… and he wants to do something about the drugs being pushed in the neighborhood.”

“So that’s why you want me?” Kenzo asked, taking a drag off his cigarette. “Because Ryu wants me dead?”

“Do you need any other reason?” Cardin asked him. “Don’t pretend that you’re not surprised, you’ve been speaking out so Ryu and Michail want you silenced. The way I figured it you could either help us or you skip town and leave the 24k Dragons behind.”

“What Cardin is trying to say is that he thinks we can help each other out,” I explained to him. “We both hate seeing these drugs on the streets of our neighborhood and would like to see it put to an end.”

“It’s not that easy Gent,” Kenzo told me, “the 24k Dragons are in the Atlesian’s pocket. We took their drugs so we have to sell them and pay for them. If the gang goes back on that then they’ll destroy us and we don’t have anyone to turn to or protect us should that happen. I’m sure the rest of the Clan would be happy to watch the Atlesian’s tear us apart, they’d see it as karmic justice and I wouldn’t blame them.”

I took a long drag of my cigarette considering his position. I agreed that the Clan would find it fitting if the Atlesian’s they threw in with destroyed them. “What if you pay the Atlesians back what you owe them?” I asked looking at Cardin. “We can do what I did with Cardin, settle the debt. Maybe O-Ushi or Junior would be willing to pay just to see that this ends without a war in the streets.”

Kenzo blinked at the suggestio, like the very thought was shocking but intriguing. But it seemed so obvious to me. “That… that could work if Ryu was willing to give it up, all he sees is the lien in this deal, he doesn't care about what it’s doing to the 24k Dragons. As filthy as the drug business is it’s bringing in money, he’s not going to just give that up.”

“You’re popular with the 24k Dragons,” Cardin chimed in. “That’s why Michail and Ryu want you dead, they’re worried people are going to listen to you, that you can get the gang to step away from this deal. I say do it!”

“I am not going to make the Dragons rip each other apart from the inside!” Kenzo growled at him. “And even so, Michail isn’t going to let us go just because we paid him, he’s pushing for more and more and that’s what he wants. I think he really does want this to turn into a war.”

“A war will destroy the gang,” Cardin told him seriously.

“I know,” Kenzo admitted. “But just because Michail is pushing us off one cliff doesn’t mean I’m going to blindly leap off another.”

I sighed as I saw the options laid out in front of me. I reached into my pocket and touched the diamond ring that Neo had tipped me the first night I drove O-Ushi’s cab. It was almost as if that little charm gave me clarity. My thoughts took a dark turn. “So what you’re saying is… we need to get rid of Ryu and Michail.” I said seeing the only obvious answer in front of me.

“That… that could work,” Cardin said with a clear look of distaste on his face. “Michail is a big player in the Atlesian Mafiya, if he’s gone then that’s going to be a hell of a blow to the organization.”

“You want to kill Ryu and Michail?” Kenzo asked me with a raised eyebrow.

I didn’t want to kill anyone but it seemed like the only option was letting this continue to escalate into something bloodier. But things wouldn’t get better with inaction, I could see a target forming right in front of my path.

“I don’t see much in terms of options,” Cardin said to him. “They’re planning to kill you, you might as well beat them to it before they destroy you and your precious gang.”

Kenzo nodded to him. “Alright… we could get them together in the same place, hit them both at the same time before they have any idea what’s going on.”

“How would we do that?” Cardin asked.

I stared out at the ocean. I was discussing murder, I was planning a hit. I had never thought that I would ever be in a position like this. I was horrified with myself for even suggesting it as an option. But war was coming and at this moment I saw a chance to prevent it and spare a ton more lives than the two I was planning on getting rid of.

“Go talk to Michail,” I said to Cardin. “Tell him all about how I thrashed you and your boys and ran Jun out of town for using my bootleg sellers to deal his drugs. Make it seem like I’m cracking down on the petty dealers in the neighborhood.” 

“Are you crazy!?” he asked me. “If I make it seem like I’m losing the neighborhood then I have no idea what he’ll do.”

“No I’m not crazy,” I assured him. “Tell Michail that I told you if he’s going to use my bootleg sellers to put his drugs on the seat then I want a cut. Tell him that I want to make a deal and buy his drugs, and that I want the cooperation and protection of the 24k Dragons to do it.”

“That could get them both in one place,” Kenzo said looking at me. “Since they don’t know that I know about the hit on me I’m sure I could arrange to be there as a bodyguard. They’ll have me search you for weapons, but I could slip you a gun.”

“Why does it have to be me?” I asked him. “You’re going to be there and armed. You could shoot him.”

“I’m not going to kill one of one Nicky’s captains alone,” Kenzo said firmly to me. “If you’re serious about mending the rift between the Clan and the Dragons then I need a member of the Clan to be there as a part of it. If the Clan doesn’t share responsibility in this then we can’t make amends. I can’t have the 24k Dragons taking all the risk if the Atlesian’s seek revenge, we do it together or not at all.”

I sighed. He had a point. Getting rid of Michail could potentially be putting the 24k Dragons right into the Atlesian’s crosshairs. It wouldn’t be fair to ask him to take all the risk. But my participation was hardly the first thing to figure out before anyone pulled a trigger.

“We can hash out the finer details later,” I said stubbing out my cigarette on the log, “I need to run this by O-Ushi and Junior first. All hits need to be sanctioned, so until I’m given a green light this is all hypothetical. Junior has been trying to avoid bloodshed so I can’t exactly go and break the peace without his authorization.”

“We can’t wait long,” Kenzo said urgently to me. “I can’t just stay in Vale waiting for Michail and Ryu to kill me.”

“Just give me a day to talk things out with my superiors, until then just act natural but keep your head down,” I said stepping away from the log and staring down the beach watching everyone else playing volleyball and having fun. It felt strange to watch everyone enjoying themselves while the three of us were talking about snuffing out two lives. I felt like I was standing on a different planet than those people.

“I’ll give you a day to get word from Junior,” Kenzo said to me. “And I want to get word from O-Ushi that she’ll pay off the 24k Dragon’s debt.”

“Do you really think you can step up if I get rid of Ryu for you?” I asked him.

“I think so,” he said. “I’ll certainly do whatever I can to see that the 24k Dragons are left in good hands when he’s gone, and that means the Clan.”

“Alright… I’ll call you soon,” I said to him as Cardin and I left to go back to my car. 

I climbed into the driver seat and lit myself another cigarette as I let everything hit me. “I need a fucking drink,” I said letting the cloud of tobacco smoke fill the car, I was happy to breath it all back in and watch it swirl around me.

“So… are you really planning on killing Michail and Ryu?” Cardin asked me, staring at the dash.

“I don’t know!” I growled at him letting my anger pour out. “But if I don’t then a shit load of other people are probably going to get killed.” I hadn’t even met Michail or Ryu but I had seen their influence on the street. I had no love for them but still the idea of killing anyone, foul as they may be, made me nauseous. 

Cardin was quiet after that. He just let me smoke and think to myself as I tried to grapple with the idea of murder. I finished my cigarette and lit another before starting the car to head back to Vale. It looked strangely both inviting and ominous in the distance. A part of me wondered if I could just leave the city behind and never look back. But that’d be leaving things I had already set in motion to crash and burn.

“Can I have one of those?” Cardin asked me pointing to the pack of cigarettes on my dash.

“Go ahead,” I said to him, handing them over to him.

Cardin helped himself and took one lighting it with my lighter. 

“This is fancy,” Cardin commented looking at my gold plated lighter.

“It was a gift from O-Ushi,” I explained to him. “She got me a lot of this fancy stuff.”

“She sounds like a good boss to have,” Cardin said as he took a drag off the cigarette.

“She is,” I told him, I meant it too. I was more than pleased to have O-Ushi as a superior, she had been more than good to me.

“The Clan treats you well,” he commented to me as I kept taking puff after puff of his cigarette.

I only nodded to him silently in agreement. 

We drove the rest of the way in silence and I dropped him off downtown so Cardin could get a different ride to his place and talk to his team. 

Part of me wanted to wait and think more but I knew it was already too late for second guesses. Things were already in motion and they wouldn’t wait on me. Kenzo’s life was already on the line and the more I thought about it Cardin and his team were already at risk as well. Even if we didn’t go through with the hit there was no way Michail would just let his former muscle work against him. I hadn’t realized how buying Cardin out from under him would make things move. I cast a stone into the pond and was just now seeing the ripples forming. It was too late to get advice from Ozpin, right now I needed to talk with higher powers. 

I grabbed my scroll and called O-Ushi the second I had dropped Cardin off. I already started driving for Junior’s Club so I could tell them everything.

“Hey if it isn’t my favorite Gentleman!” She greeted as she picked up. “What can I do for you Gent?”

“I need to meet with you and Junior as soon as possible,” I told her seriously. “There’s been a few developments you both need to know about right away.”

“What kind of development?” She asked me believing that I was indeed completely serious about this and talking to Junior.

I took a breath and tried to steel myself, “I want to authorize a hit,” I told her with all the strength I could muster.

A long pause was over the line and I held my breath for her next words. “We shouldn’t talk about this over the scroll Jaune. Drive on over to the club right now, I’ll call Junior.”

It released my breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Thanks,” I said to her.

“Don’t thank me for anything yet,” she said seriously. “We’re going to need to know what this is all about. And I mean every detail Jaune this is very serious.”

“I know it’s serious O-Ushi, it’s very serious” I assured her. “And I’ll tell you both everything, but it’s kind of a long story

“It’s always a long story,” O-Ushi said to me before hanging up. It was a long drive to Junior’s Club. I thought very hard about what I had just started the entire way there.


End file.
